The chief legal advisor for the D.C. National Guard on January 6, 2021, asserts that senior military leadership ignored President Trump's authority as commander-in-chief.
Colonel Earl Matthews stepped forward as a whistleblower to the House subcommittee conducting the review of the January 6 Select Committee's investigation.
He alleges that Mark Milley, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, and then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, were conspiring to defy any orders issued by Trump because they unreasonably believed that Trump might unlawfully attempt to deploy the D.C. National Guard to obstruct the certification of the 2020 presidential election ‘results.’
Matthews also asserts that senior military leadership was primarily concerned with deflecting attention away from themselves and redirecting it towards Trump.
The Select Committee on the January 6 Attack was eager to embrace this narrative and shift the blame onto President Trump, Colonel Matthews alleges. However, he contends that senior military leadership effectively undermined Trump’s authority as commander-in-chief by premeditating plans to disobey orders, driven by concerns about the optics of uniformed soldiers being present at the Capitol.
Matthew’s sat down with the Daily Mail for an interview, stating: ‘I think a very plausible argument can be made that through no fault of his own, President Trump's command authority over both the D.C. National Guard and the U.S. Army itself had been surreptitiously curtailed by the senior leadership of the Army on January 6, 2021.’
‘Army leadership had unreasonably anticipated an ‘unlawful order' from the President, an order that the President had no plans to issue, and were preemptively seeking to curtail his discretion to issue such an order,’ Colonel Matthews continued.
Matthews served as the Staff Judge Advocate of the DCNG during the riot, and was present on the infamous phone call on the afternoon of January 6, 2021, along with McCarthy, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, and other senior leadership.
During this call, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund urgently requested assistance from the DCNG in responding to the Capitol riot. DCNG Commander Maj. Gen. William Walker had already prepared his troops for deployment.
Sund testified at a congressional hearing, and Matthews reiterated in his interview that Army Staff Director Walter Piatt and Chief of Staff for Operations Charles Flynn were also involved in the discussion, despite Flynn previously stating under oath that he was not on the call.
Colonel Matthews specified that Piatt and Flynn wanted the National Guard to identify locations across the city where it could take over responsibilities from MPD officers to allow for those civilian police officers to deploy to the Capitol.
The final report from the select committee acknowledges that Trump did indeed approve the deployment of the National Guard, contrary to claims that he failed to provide proper authorizations. This acknowledgment highlights the more than three-hour delay in the Guard's deployment.
Trump's Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller explained to Daily Mail last month that Trump did indeed authorize the deployment of the National Guard during an Oval Office meeting days before January 6, 2021. He also stated that the January 6 Committee threatened him to cease speaking publicly about his account of the events surrounding the Capitol riot.
