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

A former top lawyer for the D.C. National Guard has accused Army officials of retaliating against him for asserting to Congress that two top Army officers lied about why deployment of the Guard was delayed during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to a complaint filed with the Defense Department and obtained by The New York Times.

Col. Earl Matthews, who previously served in the Trump administration and was the top lawyer for the D.C. Guard during the Jan. 6 assault, said in the complaint that he was retaliated against after he accused two generals in a report to Congress of making false statements about the delayed deployment, an issue that has produced multiple and often conflicting accounts.

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

A copy of the 37-page whistle-blower reprisal complaint was filed with the Pentagon’s inspector general in October, two months before the third anniversary of the attack on Congress by a pro-Trump mob seeking to halt certification of President Biden’s 2020 election victory.

It underscores how many questions remain about aspects of the government and law enforcement response to the deadly attack on the Capitol.

At the center of this particular dispute is a still-simmering feud inside the military over who is to blame for the more than four-hour delay in deploying the National Guard as the rioters battled their way into the Capitol, assaulting dozens of police officers along the way and endangering members of Congress, their staffs and others working in the building.