January 10, 2024
The colonel and Army lawyer challenging the Army's official narrative of the events and leadership decisions during the Capitol Hill protests on Jan. 6, 2021—a narrative relied upon by the Colorado Supreme Court when it struck President Donald J. Trump from the ballot — told RedState then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley was the black hand operating outside his legal authority to delay the District of Columbia National Guard from responding the protests that day.
“Milley is the Don Barzini of the Deep State," said Col. Earl G. Matthews, the Harvard Law School graduate, who was the senior legal advisor to Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the D.C. National Guard's commanding general from March 2018 through April 2021...
He said that [Secretary of the Army Ryan D.] McCarthy was a former Army Ranger captain who naturally deferred to Milley.
The colonel said it is essential to understand that, unlike the National Guards in the states and territories in the nation's capital, the National Guard is not controlled by a governor; instead, it is under the president's direct control. In practice, Trump and other presidents delegated active control of the D.C. National Guard to the Army Secretary.
Matthews said Milley was always joking about this unique command and control structure. "When Milley would call over, he would always say: 'I've got your governor on the line,' which meant it was McCarthy."
Matthews said he was with Walker throughout J6, and the D.C. National Guard was poised to respond to the crisis on Capitol Hill, but the Army’s official record does not align with what he witnessed and experienced that day.
For most of the crisis, he said the Guard was ordered not to approach the Capitol beyond 9th Street, which is the block where the FBI headquarters sits.
One prime example is McCarthy’s testimony that he tried Jan. 6, 2021, to call Walker to talk to him about mobilizing his Guardsmen at 4:35 and 5 p.m., which was relied upon by Professor William C. Banks in his testimony at the Colorado court proceedings that led to Trump’s removal from the state’s primary ballot, he said.
Matthews said Walker turned over his phone to prove McCarthy did not call him.
“The Army lied about it. Walker actually pulled the phone calls,” he said. “McCarthy didn’t have any record of the call, so those calls didn't exist.”
The colonel said Walker tried to set the record straight in his own March 2021 testimony when he appeared before the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
Walker
told the committee that he watched at 1:30 p.m. as Metropolitan Police officers mobilized to support the Capitol Police officers, and then Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund called him.
At 1:49 p.m., I received a frantic call from then Chief of U.S. Capitol Police Steven Sund, where he informed me that the security perimeter at the Capitol had been breached by hostile rioters. Chief Sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated that there was a dire emergency on Capitol Hill and requested the immediate assistance of as many Guardsmen as I could muster.
Immediately after the 1:49 p.m. call with Chief Sund, I alerted the Army senior leadership of the request. The approval for Chief Sund’s request would eventually come from the Acting Secretary of Defense and be relayed to me by Army senior leaders at 5:08 p.m. – three hours and 19 minutes later. We already had Guardsmen on buses ready to move to the Capitol. Consequently, at 5:20 p.m, (in under 20 minutes) the District of Columbia National Guard arrived at the Capitol. We helped to re-establish the security perimeter at the east side of the Capitol to facilitate the resumption of the Joint Session of Congress.
He said that despite this delay,
Milley told reporters the Pentagon reacted to the Capitol Hill protests with sprint speed.
“I'm saying that his people delayed us, but Milley is in the center of everything, making the decisions—no question about it,” he said...
The colonel said the National Guard responded quickly and effectively to the George Floyd riots in Washington in the summer of 2020 and that before J6, Guardsmen on alert were issued riot gear and instructions, so there was no need to report to the armory before forming up at the Capitol. “We pivoted quickly in the George Floyd; we should have done the same thing on Jan 6.” ...
Matthews said when he spoke up to defend Walker and the record as he lived it, he went from being colonel-promotable, meaning he was on the list for brigadier general, to being shunned by peers and leaders and with little chance of pinning his first star.
“They lied in front of Congress to claim they moved quickly, but they didn't—they could have moved much quicker,” he said.
“I got retaliated against. That's the bottom line,” he said.
