National Guard whistleblowers accused Army brass of lying about why the National Guard was delayed in their deployment to the U.S. Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
The witnesses testified before an oversight panel of the House Administration Committee, which is scrutinizing the investigation of the now-defunct Jan. 6 Select Committee.
The witnesses said that senior officers were more concerned about the “optics” of deploying the National Guard to the Capitol on the day that pro-Trump supporters breached the building to protest the congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election.
Capt. Timothy Nick, who was the personal assistant to Maj. Gen. William Walker, then commanding general of the D.C. National Guard on the day the Capitol was breached, testified that a Pentagon review of their actions is misleading.
He testified that the Department of Defense inspector general’s multidisciplinary review into the D.C. National Guard response and the department’s role that day is “riddled with inaccuracies, misstatements, and perhaps false flag narratives” about the Guard’s response. The review was issued Nov. 16, 2021.
This included his statement that the Army’s Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, director of chief of staff of operations, was on a 2:31 p.m. conference call with D.C. law enforcement officials, the Secret Service uniformed division and several senior officials of the Army.
According to Capt. Nick, the Army falsely denied that Lt. Gen. Flynn was on the call and participated in the discussion. He says Lt. Gen. Flynn and others on the call talked about why the “optics” would be bad if the National Guard were to deploy.
The review also has language “papering over the fact that Lt. Gen. [Walter] Piatt, Lt. Gen. Flynn, while on the call, discussed how they did not like the optics,” Capt. Nick said.
“They stated it would be in their best military advice to recommend to the Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy to deny the request from Command Gen. William Walker to deploy the D.C. National Guard and aid U.S. Capitol Police in the restoration of order and liberty on Capitol Hill,” he said.
The Washington Times reached out to Lt. Gen. Flynn, Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Piatt for comment, but did not immediately hear back.
Chairman Barry Loudermilk, in his opening remarks, took issue with the Defense Department’s characterization of Mr. Walker, who now serves as the House’s Sergeant at Arms, and that the Jan. 6 Select Committee accepted that he was responsible for the Guard’s late deployment.
“Specifically, the DoD IG report concludes that the leader of the National Guard response Maj. Gen. Walker received direction from the Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy to deploy the D.C. National Guard to the Capitol twice, once at 4:35 p.m. and again at 5 p.m.,” said Mr. Loudermilk, Georgia Republican. “Maj. Gen. Walker denies that either of these calls took place, despite the many inconsistent consistencies and contradictions of the Department of Defense’s responsibility that day. The Select Committee on January 6 ignored these discrepancies despite them being shared privately by their own staff and barreled forward with the DoD side of the story.”
The mob had broken through the final police barricades that day around 1:30 p.m.
The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Norma Torres of California, lay blame on former President Donald Trump for not calling for National Guardsman when the rioters were about to breach the Capitol.
“This was a commander-in-chief, who as the riot unfolded, didn’t call his acting Secretary of Defense or Secretary of the Army, who asked why the National Guard was missing. Where were they? The commander-in-chief, who, after he learned someone was shot, didn’t care,” she said. “He didn’t call the National Guard directly, a commander-in-chief whose aides and family partied and danced as the mob prepared to overturn the Capitol.”
Several whistleblowers from the D.C. National Guard who were present with Mr. Walker came forward as witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing.
They were D.C. Army National Guard’s former chief legal adviser, Col. Earl Matthews; Command Sgt. Major Michael Brooks, senior enlisted officer, and Brig. Gen. Aaron Dean, adjutant general.
Col. Matthews, who served as Mr. Walker’s top attorney on Jan. 6, 2021, previously sent a 36-page memo to the Jan. 6 Select Committee slamming the DoD IG report.
He called Lt. Gen. Flynn, who served as deputy chief of staff for operations on Jan. 6, and Mr. Piatt, then the director of Army staff — “absolute and unmitigated liars.”
A spokesperson from the DoD Office of Inspector General told The Times in a statement, “We stand by our January 6th Report and have no further comment at this time.”
According to Col. Matthews, then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund begged on the 2:30 p.m. conference call to immediately deploy the National Guard to the Capitol.
At that point, Col. Matthews remembered Mr. Sund saying that rioters had breached the Capitol’s perimeter, but Mr. Piatt and Lt. Gen. Flynn rejected deploying any National Guard.
Additionally, Capt. Nick testified that Mr. McCarthy, who claimed in the Pentagon report that he was on the 2:31 p.m. call and participated, was not on the conference call.
“This is false unless he was in the room, shadowing the call and he did not speak nor identify himself,” he said. “He was not on the call. He was en route to [the] Washington, D.C. regional office at the Federal Bureau of Investigation to support that agency’s concept of operations plan for January 6.”
According to Capt. Nick, Mr. McCarthy falsely claimed that he called in and spoke to Mr. Walker at least twice, ordering a deployment of the D.C. National Guard.
Capt. Nick said staff officers told Mr. Walker to stand by until 5:09 p.m., a delay of three hours and 19 minutes, before deploying any Guard to Capitol Hill.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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