FERGUSON, Missouri–Missouri Governor Jay Nixon called Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder’s charge against him, relating to National Guard deployment in Ferguson on Monday, “absurd.” 

Kinder told KTRS on Tuesday morning that he wants to know if the Obama administration, particularly the Holder Justice Department, leaned on Nixon to hold back the Guard during the riots in Ferguson on Monday night. The violence was triggered after the grand jury announced that Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson would not be indicted for the August 9 shooting death of Michael Brown.

“It is so inexplicable. It is so hard to understand why the governor would not deploy the forces he had at the ready. Is it because he was leaned on not to send them in–leaned on by the Obama administration and the Holder Justice Department?” Kinder asked.

“That is false and absurd and politics has nothing to do with what any of the folks up here are doing. We’re doing our duty. Behind me you have serious sworn officers,” Nixon told Breitbart News angrily at a press conference, as he stood with officials and leaders representing the National Guard and Missouri law enforcement. “You have hundreds of people putting their lives on the line each and every night. Politics has not one bit to do with the tasks at hand and the responsibilities at hand and the seriousness of this mission.”

Nixon is now ordering 2200 National Guard troops to deploy into Ferguson. The number increased three fold today after a night of looting and vandalism enveloped the Ferguson area following the grand jury verdict.

“The violence we saw in areas of Ferguson last night is unacceptable,” he said.

“Last night, criminals intent on lawlessness and destruction terrorized this community,” Nixon said at an afternoon news conference. “I am deeply saddened for the people of Ferguson who woke up to see parts of their community in ruins. No one should have to live like this, no one deserves this. We must do better and we will.” Mayor James Knowles said the new deployment came too late, and the delay is deeply concerning.

Kinder says Knowles told him the governor ignored his calls for help throughout the evening, as well as for the past three months.