National Guard troops who protected the Capitol for Biden’s Inauguration were told to sleep in a parking garage.
National Guard troops brought in to protect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration were ordered to sleep in an unheated garage hours after being booted from the Capitol on Thursday, prompting an uproar among lawmakers who scrambled to move them back.
On Friday, Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire demanded that state’s troops be sent home.
“I’ve ordered the immediate return of all New Hampshire National Guard from Washington D.C.,” Mr. Sununu, a moderate Republican, said on Twitter. “They did an outstanding job serving our nation’s capital in a time of strife and should be graciously praised, not subject to substandard conditions.”
The Pentagon, which oversees deployment of the Guard, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The troops in the garage were among the more than 20,000 National Guard personnel who provided security for the inauguration on Wednesday. They were relocated on Thursday afternoon to the nearby Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building, said Capt. Edwin Nieves Jr., the spokesman for the Washington, D.C., branch of the National Guard.
Early Friday morning, the D.C. Guard said that the soldiers had been moved back to the Capitol from the parking garage. Capt. Nieves said that they would take future breaks “near Emancipation Hall,” a part of the Capitol complex.
Captain Nieves said that the Guard troops had been temporarily moved out of the Capitol on Thursday afternoon at request of the Capitol Police because of “increased foot traffic” as Congress came back into session. He did not specify how many soldiers had been moved.
The acting chief of the Capitol Police, Yogananda Pittman, said in a statement on Friday morning that the police did not tell the Guard to leave the Capitol except on Inauguration Day, when the swearing-in ceremony was taking place.
“As of this morning, all Guardsmen and women have been relocated to space within the Capitol Complex,” Ms. Pittman said. “The Department is also working with the Guard to reduce the need for sleeping accommodations by establishing shorter shifts, and will ensure they have access to the comfortable accommodations they absolutely deserve when the need arises.”
Two Guard soldiers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that they had been relocated without explanation and that they were without electrical power, heat or adequate restroom facilities. One soldier estimated that there were 1,000 troops sharing one portable restroom outside the garage.
“Zero guidance on mission, length of mission, nothing,” the soldier said.
The soldiers also said that their fellow troops were breathing in exhaust fumes because the garage at the Thurgood Marshall center was still in use for parking.
Captain Nieves said that the garage had heat and restrooms.
Reports of the move prompted protests from lawmakers from both parties, including House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York. Some offered to house the Guard troops in their offices.
“This is unacceptable and must be fixed,” Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, wrote on Twitter.
On social media, some lawmakers said they were making efforts to move the troops back to the Capitol.
In a tweet, Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said that he had spoken to the acting chief of the Capitol Police about the issue.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon said that 12 Guard soldiers had been removed from their duties at Mr. Biden’s inauguration, two of them over texts and social media posts that made threatening comments toward political officials. (An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that all 12 soldiers had been removed over threatening remarks.)
