National Guard troops who protected the Capitol for Biden’s Inauguration were told to sleep in a parking garage.

National Guard troops who were introduced in to shield Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration as president discovered themselves sleeping in an unheated storage hours after being booted from the Capitol on Thursday, prompting an uproar amongst lawmakers who scrambled to transfer them again.

The troops were amongst the greater than 20,000 National Guard personnel who supplied safety for the inauguration on Wednesday. They were relocated on Thursday afternoon to the close by Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building, mentioned Capt. Edwin Nieves Jr., the spokesman for the Washington, D.C., department of the National Guard.

“As Congress is in session and increased foot traffic and business is being conducted, Capitol Police asked the troops to move their rest area outside of the Capitol,” Captain Nieves mentioned, including that the relocation was momentary. The D.C. National Guard didn’t say what number of troopers were being quartered in the garages or how lengthy they might be there.

Two Guard troopers, who spoke on the situation of anonymity mentioned that they’d been relocated with out rationalization and that they were with out electrical energy, warmth or sufficient restroom services. One soldier estimated that there were 1,000 troops sharing one transportable restroom outdoors the storage.

“Zero guidance on mission, length of mission, nothing,” the soldier mentioned.

The troopers additionally mentioned that their fellow troops were respiration in exhaust fumes as a result of the storage at the Thurgood Marshall middle was nonetheless in use for parking.

Captain Nieves mentioned that the relocation was momentary and that the storage had warmth and restrooms.

“We remain an agile and flexible force to provide for the safety and security of the Capitol and its surrounding areas,” he mentioned.

Reports of the transfer prompted protests from lawmakers from each events, together with House minority chief Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York. Some supplied to home the Guard troops in their places of work.

“This is unacceptable and must be fixed,” Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, wrote on Twitter.

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On social media, some lawmakers mentioned they were making efforts to transfer the troops again to the Capitol.

In a tweet, Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, mentioned that he had spoken to the appearing chief of the Capitol Police about the problem.

The D.C. Guard didn’t instantly reply to a request on Thursday night time inquiring about the effort to transfer troops again into the Capitol.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon mentioned that 12 Guard troopers had been faraway from their duties at Mr. Biden’s inauguration after officers found that they’d written texts and social media posts that made threatening feedback towards political officers.