Generals Accused of Lying to Congress About Jan. 6 by Former DC Guard Official: ‘Absolute and Unmitigated Liars’
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A former official for D.C. National Guard has issued a shocking accusation against two generals who he believed perjured themselves before Congress in their testimony about the events of Jan. 6.
In a stunning memo to the Jan. 6 committee obtained by Politico, Col. Earl Matthews accuses Army Gen. Charles Flynn (brother of Michael Flynn) and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt of wholesale fabrications about their accounts of the attack on the Capitol.
“Both were absolute and unmitigated liars,” Matthews said in the memo.
The crux of the allegation is that Matthews claims Flynn and Piatt lied to Congress when claiming that they moved for the D.C. guard to be quickly deployed soon after the attack began. Matthews believes that the generals made their claims in an effort to smear Major Gen. William Walker, who was the commanding general of D.C. National Guard, and essentially turn him into a scapegoat.
From the memo:
An analysis of the facts demonstrates that Piatt, Flynn and their confederates repeatedly and deliberately made false statements under oath or false official statements to the DoDIG and/or a congressional committee in order to support their contrived narrative, to discredit MG Walker, to absolve Army Senior Leaders of any responsibility in the delays on 6 January, and to burnish the promotion chances of Walter Piatt.
Piatt repeated a narrative that he knew to be untrue to both the DoDIG and to the House Oversight Committee. Piatt claims that on the conference call, “the SecArmy asked MG Walker how quickly the 40-member QRF [quick reaction force’ could respond; MG Walker stated the QRF could be ready to move in 20 minutes. The SecArmy directed MG Walker to prepare to move the QRF to the Capitol Building and support the USCP, but to remain at the Armory until he confirmed approval from the Acting SecDef.” That sentence is drawn from whole cloth and did not occur. In later estimony Piatt and Flynn would state that the QRF was ill-equipped and ill-suited to respond to Capitol Hill, but here Piatt states as early as 2:30PM, before meeting with Miller, McCarthy had already saliently determined and directed Walker to posture the QRF to move to the Hill.
Matthews went on to call the Army’s report of Jan. 6 “a revisionist tract worthy of the best Stalinist or North Korea propagandist.”
Matthews told Politico, about the memo, “Our Army has never failed us and did not do so on January 6, 2021. However, occasionally some of our Army leaders have failed us and they did so on January 6th. Then they lied about it and tried to cover it up. They tried to smear a good man and to erase history.”
