Did National Guard commanders confiscate all ammunition and magazines from troops guarding the U.S. Capitol? No, that's not true: A claim has gone viral that the Biden transition team feared guard members loyal to President Trump "might kill Biden." But National Guard spokesman Maj. Matt Murphy told Lead Stories,"To our knowledge no one has removed any ammunition from those who are actively guarding the Capitol or the surrounding areas."
The claim originated as a post published on Twitter on January 17, 2021, by the account "@amuse " (archived here) which opened:
"Biden's transition team has revealed there is a very real fear that members of the national guard who support President Trump might kill Biden during the inauguration so they've asked commanders to confiscate all ammo and magazines from the soldiers. See photo:"
This is what the post looked like on Twitter at the time of writing:
(Source: Twitter screenshot taken on Tue Jan 19 19:16:37 2021 UTC)
There is no truth to the claim made in the tweet, Maj. Murphy told Lead Stories during a telephone interview on January 19, 2021.
"As of today there are almost 22,500 National Guard troops that have been deputized by the requesting local and federal law enforcement agencies, which includes authorization of lethal force if necessary, as outlined by the legal authorities that they were deputized under," he said.
Murphy said that the agencies that requested the National Guard "have given requirements for our soldiers to be armed with lethal force. And the National Guard meets those requirements."
Lead Stories reached out to the Biden Transition Team for comment and will update the story, as appropriate, when a response is received.
