Former Guard Official Says Military Retaliated for His Account of Jan. 6 Delay

A former high lawyer for the D.C. Nationwide Guard has accused Military officers of retaliating in opposition to him for asserting to Congress that two high Military officers lied about why deployment of the Guard was delayed through the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, in response to a criticism filed with the Protection Division and obtained by The New York Instances.

Col. Earl Matthews, who beforehand served within the Trump administration and was the highest lawyer for the D.C. Guard through the Jan. 6 assault, mentioned within the criticism that he was retaliated in opposition to after he accused two generals in a report back to Congress of constructing false statements in regards to the delayed deployment, a problem that has produced a number of and infrequently conflicting accounts.

“It’s textbook whistle-blower retaliation. I wrote that memo because I saw real wrongdoing,” Colonel Matthews mentioned in his first interview for the reason that incident. “I love the United States Army. To me, this is about Army values.”

A duplicate of the 37-page whistle-blower reprisal complaint was filed with the Pentagon’s inspector common in October, two months earlier than the third anniversary of the assault on Congress by a pro-Trump mob in search of to halt certification of President Biden’s 2020 election victory.

It underscores what number of questions stay about elements of the federal government and regulation enforcement response to the lethal assault on the Capitol.

On the heart of this specific dispute is a still-simmering feud contained in the navy over who’s accountable for the greater than four-hour delay in deploying the Nationwide Guard because the rioters battled their approach into the Capitol, assaulting dozens of law enforcement officials alongside the best way and endangering members of Congress, their staffs and others working within the constructing.

Colonel Matthews, who was concerned in key conferences in regards to the Guard deployment, mentioned he initially gave his account of what occurred to Congress in 2021 after he noticed high Military officers attempt to downplay their function within the delay.

Particularly, Colonel Matthews mentioned he was infuriated by a report he mentioned was overseen by Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt of the Military that he described as a “misleading, factually flawed and revisionist recitation of events” that he seen as shifting the blame for the delay onto D.C. Nationwide Guard management. He was additionally angered by what he seen as a defective report from the Protection Division’s inspector common that relied on among the identical materials.

Colonel Matthews drafted a 36-page memo that he submitted to the Home Jan. 6 committee, accusing Basic Piatt and Gen. Charles Flynn of being “absolute and unmitigated liars” in their testimony before Congress.

In fall of 2022, the Biden White Home denied Basic Piatt a promotion after Colonel Matthews raised considerations about his testimony.

Not lengthy after, Colonel Matthews mentioned, he confronted retaliation.

In February 2023, Colonel Matthews, who at that time was assigned to the Military Battle Faculty as a part of the Military Reserve, mentioned he was falsely accused of unprofessional habits. He mentioned he was additionally listed as an individual of concern who would possibly attempt to disrupt a navy convention in Virginia being attended by Basic Piatt and was escorted out of a lodge internet hosting the seminar by safety personnel.

Colonel Matthews mentioned he was additionally denied consideration for promotion, regardless of having been chosen by a promotion board for brigadier common.

Within the interview, Colonel Matthews mentioned he didn’t imagine Basic Piatt ordered or knew in regards to the retaliation and blamed lower-ranking officers on the Military Battle Faculty. A type of officers acknowledged that Colonel Matthews’s “widely publicized attacks on Army senior leaders in relation to the Jan. 6 insurrection” factored into his perception that Colonel Matthews needs to be faraway from his place, in response to the criticism.

The criticism was filed with the Pentagon’s inspector common by the legal professionals Andrew Bakaj and Mark Zaid by means of the group Whistleblower Assist. It mentioned that along with costing Colonel Matthews cash within the type of forgone wage and pension, the alleged retaliation imposed “grievous reputational harm, significant personal embarrassment and public humiliation.”

Colonel Matthews is asking that the inspector common advocate he be slated for task to brigadier common and that those that retaliated in opposition to him be reprimanded and punished.

He additionally desires any false or deceptive testimony in regards to the Nationwide Guard delay to be corrected within the congressional report.

Because the riot unfolded on Jan. 6, Basic Flynn, who commanded the U.S. Military Pacific, and Basic Piatt, the director of the Military workers, had been concerned in a telephone name with police leaders by which Military officers apprehensive aloud in regards to the “optics” of sending in the Guard, in response to congressional testimony by the commander of the D.C. Nationwide Guard.

Basic Flynn is the brother of Michael T. Flynn, a former Military common who was President Donald J. Trump’s first, short-lived nationwide safety adviser. Michael Flynn later took an lively function in attempting to overturn the 2020 election and urged Mr. Trump to make use of the equipment of presidency to grab voting machines.

Charles Flynn informed Congress he had not participated within the name however merely overheard parts of it when he entered the room. He mentioned he had not heard any dialogue of political issues with regard to sending within the Guard.

“I did not use the word ‘optics,’ nor did I hear the word used during the call on Jan. 6, 2021,” he mentioned.

However Colonel Matthews known as these feedback by Basic Flynn “outright perjury” and mentioned he “unmistakably heard him say that optics of a National Guard presence on Capitol Hill was an issue for him.”

Colonel Matthews listed a sequence of different discrepancies with the testimony by Basic Piatt and Basic Flynn.

Colonel Matthews identified that Basic Flynn gave contradictory testimony in numerous venues. That included claiming to the Home Oversight Committee {that a} workforce underneath his route “immediately worked” to start to deploy the Guard to the Capitol, though he later informed the Jan. 6 Committee such actions weren’t in his purview.

An Military spokesman has defended the lads, calling them “open, honest and thorough in their sworn testimony with Congress and D.O.D. investigators” and saying the navy stands by “all testimony and facts provided to date.”

The Pentagon’s inspector common declined to remark. A spokeswoman for the Military mentioned she couldn’t touch upon a pending matter.

Within the interview, Colonel Matthews additionally faulted the now-defunct Home Jan. 6 committee for not holding a listening to on safety failures throughout its 2022 inquiry due to a call to concentrate on the actions of Mr. Trump.

“They were focused on the president, and I understand that,” he mentioned, “but the security failures need to be looked at because we don’t want that to happen again. And I don’t think that was done.”

Colonel Matthews’s expertise on Jan. 6 is essentially in keeping with the accounts of different District of Columbia and regulation enforcement officers concerned within the response that day, together with one supplied by the previous Capitol Police chief, Steven A. Sund, who mentioned the Pentagon was extra involved about “optics” than shortly deploying the Nationwide Guard.

“I got on a call with the Pentagon and pleaded for the National Guard,” he mentioned in an interview about his guide, “Courage Under Fire.” “There was delay after delay after delay.”