Former DC National Guard official slams generals as 'unmitigated liars' over Jan. 6 response

Col. Earl Matthews, a former D.C. National Guard official, is speaking out about the Guard’s response to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building. Matthews, according to Politico, has sent a memo to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 committee attacking other officials for their description of what transpired that day.

Politico journalists Betsy Woodruff Swan and Meridith McGraw report that Matthews “is accusing two senior Army leaders of lying to Congress and participating in a secret attempt to rewrite the history of the military's response to the Capitol riot.”

According to Swan and McGraw, “In a 36-page memo, Col. Earl Matthews, who held high-level National Security Council and Pentagon roles during the Trump Administration, slams the Pentagon's inspector general for what he calls an error-riddled report that protects a top Army official who argued against sending the National Guard to the Capitol on January 6, delaying the insurrection response for hours. Matthews' memo, sent to the January 6 select committee this month and obtained by Politico, includes detailed recollections of the insurrection response as it calls two Army generals — Gen. Charles Flynn, who served as deputy chief of staff for operations on January 6, and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt, the director of Army staff — ‘absolute and unmitigated liars’ for their characterization of the events of that day.”

On January 6, Matthews was the top attorney for Maj. Gen. William Walker, who was the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard at the time. Matthews, according to Swan and McGraw, “defends” Walker’s response to the January 6 attack in the memo but is vehemently critical of Flynn and Piatt.

Swan and McGraw explain, “Matthews’ memo levels major accusations: that Flynn and Piatt lied to Congress about their response to pleas for the D.C. Guard to quickly be deployed on January 6; that the Pentagon inspector general’s November report on Army leadership’s response to the attack was ‘replete with factual inaccuracies’; and that the Army has created its own closely held revisionist document about the Capitol riot that’s ‘worthy of the best Stalinist or North Korea propagandist’…. The new memo from Matthews, who now serves in the Army reserves, emerges as officials involved in the response that day try to explain their decision-making to investigators. The House select committee has probed the attack for months, and earlier this year, top officials testified before the House Oversight panel.”