Donald Trump’s authority as commander in chief was ignored by senior military leadership on January 6, 2021, the DC National Guard’s chief legal adviser claimed on that day.
Colonel Earl Matthews came forward as a whistleblower to the House subcommittee that reviewed the January 6 Select Committee investigation.
Two weeks after the public hearing, he spoke to DailyMail.com to explain what he saw happen that day.
He claims that Mark Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy planned to defy Trump’s orders because they “unreasonably” believed the then-president would break the rules . law and attempt to use the DC National Guard (DCNG) to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
Much has been written about the breakdown of military and administrative communications when it came to the timeline for DCNG deployment to the Capitol.
But Matthews claims that the senior military leadership was solely focused on taking the pressure off them and putting it back on Trump.
Colonel Earl Matthews served as the Staff Judge Advocate on January 6, 2021. He came forward on January 6 as a whistleblower before the subcommittee that reviewed the Select Committee’s investigation.
Matthews told DailyMail.com that the military essentially stripped then-President Donald Trump of his authority as commander-in-chief on January 6, 2021, as they planned to go against all orders from him to deploy the National Guard to the Capitol that day to steer.
The Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, Matthews claims, was only too happy to rely on this story and blame the whole ordeal on the then president.
But Matthews says senior military leadership effectively stripped the president of his authority as commander in chief by preemptively planning to go against orders because they didn’t like the optics of uniformed soldiers in the Capitol.
“I think a very plausible argument can be made that, through no fault of his own, President Trump’s command authority over both the DC National Guard and the US military itself was surreptitiously curtailed by the military’s senior leadership on January 6, 2021. Matthews told DailyMail.com.
He continued: “The Army leadership had unreasonably anticipated an ‘illegal order’ from the President, one that the President had no intention of issuing, and sought to preemptively exercise its discretionary authority to issue such an order to limit.’
Matthews, who served as the DCNG’s Staff Judge Advocate during the riot, was on the afternoon of January 6, 2021, on the extensive and highly publicized phone call with McCarthy, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and other senior leadership.
U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, during the call, urged the DCNG to assist law enforcement in responding to the riot at the Capitol. And DCNG Commander Major General William Walker had prepared his troops for their deployment.
Sund said at a congressional hearing, and Matthews reiterated in his interview with DailyMail.com, that Army Director of Staff Walter Piatt and Chief of Staff for Operations Charles Flynn were part of that discussion, despite the latter claiming under oath that he was not present. .
The more than three-hour delay in the deployment of the DC National Guard to the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was central to the claim that Trump attempted to participate in an insurrection.
Matthews claims Army Chief of Staff Walter Piatt (left) and Chief of Staff for Operations Charles Flynn (right) were “nonchalant” during the attack on the Capitol, where US Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund called for National Guard backup
Matthews said during the call that Flynn and Piatt seemed “almost disinterested” in Sund’s concerns and showed no urgency in getting the National Guard to the U.S. Capitol to respond to rioters.
“Flynn and Piatt displayed what I would characterize as a nonchalant attitude during the approximately 25-minute conversation,” the colonel alleged.
Moreover, he said the two military leaders “didn’t like the optics of the Guard coming to the Capitol,” even though Piatt told Congress under oath that he never mentioned “optics.”
“Both Piatt and Flynn were obsessively focused during the election certification on what they perceived to be the bad optics of military personnel in the Capitol,” Matthews told DailyMail.com.
“They both stated that they believed that what occurred at the Capitol was most appropriately handled by civilian law enforcement personnel,” he continued, “despite the fact that the capabilities and resources of the U.S. Capitol Police and MPD were quickly overwhelmed and the National Police quickly became overwhelmed. The guard generally assists the civilian police authorities in such circumstances.”
Matthews explained, “Piatt and Flynn wanted the D.C. National Guard to find locations in the city where they could relieve MPD officers performing traffic or other duties so that those civilian police officers could be deployed to the Capitol.”
Critics blame the three-hour, nineteen-minute delay in the DC National Guard’s arrival at the Capitol on not stopping the riot sooner after Trump’s supporters breached the building.
The Jan. 6 committee was led by seven Democrats and two Republicans who are no longer in Congress, former Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
The select committee’s final report acknowledges that Trump approved the deployment of the National Guard despite claims that he did not give proper authorization, which resulted in the more than three-hour delay.
“Former President Trump’s eagerness to engage the U.S. military in playing a visible role in addressing the domestic unrest in the late spring and summer of 2020 appears to have prompted senior military leadership to take precautionary measures in the preparation of the joint session against the possibility that the DC Guard could be ordered to deploy due to improper use,” the final report reads.
But Matthews confirms that the president’s authority was ignored or completely thwarted by Piatt and Flynn, as well as other military leaders.
And he says it’s contradictory to blame Trump for the delay while also claiming he tried to use the DCNG to stop the certification of the 2020 election results.
Trump’s then-acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller reiterated to DailyMail.com last month that Trump had authorized the National Guard during an Oval Office meeting days before Jan. 6, 2021.
He also said the Jan. 6 Committee threatened him to stop speaking publicly about his account of the events surrounding the Capitol riot.