A bombshell of a twist regarding former President Donald Trump and his status of commander-in-chief on Jan. 6, 2021 quickly made headlines this week.
According to the Daily Mail, a Washington D.C. National Guard whistleblower revealed this week that Trump was "stripped" of his commander-in-chief status on that day, and that commanders refused to take his orders to deploy soldiers to the Capitol.
Colonel Earl Matthews, who was the chief legal advisor for D.C. National Guard on the day of the Capitol protests, made the astonishing claim.
The revelation from Matthews came during a "House subcommittee reviewing the January 6 Select Committee's investigation."
In a nutshell, top commanders, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had "plotted" to ignore Trump's orders on Jan. 6 as they assumed he would use his commander-in-chief powers to deploy National Guard troops to disrupt the certification of the votes.
The Daily Mail noted:
He claims that Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, and then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, were plotting to disobey any orders handed down by Trump because they 'unreasonably' assumed the then-president was going to break the law and try to use the D.C. National Guard (DCNG) to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
Matthews claims that the military leaders preemptively planned to go against Trump's orders on that day.
"I think a very plausible argument can be made that through no fault of his own, President Trump's command authority over both the D.C. National Guard and the U.S. Army itself had been surreptitiously curtailed by the senior leadership of the Army on January 6, 2021," the colonel told the Daily Mail.
Donald Trump's authority as commander-in-chief was ignored by senior military leadership on January 6, 2021, claims the chief legal advisor for D.C. National Guard on that day.
Colonel Earl Matthews came forward as a whistleblower to the House subcommittee reviewing the January… pic.twitter.com/wbVBCqj7Vq
— Willem (@NerumWim) May 4, 2024
Matthews added, "Army leadership had unreasonably anticipated an 'unlawful order' from the President, an order that the President had no plans to issue, and were preemptively seeking to curtail his discretion to issue such an order."
Matthews recalled that some of the military leaders on a phone call when D.C. National Guard troops were requested were afraid of the "bad optics" of sending the Guard to the nation's capital.
"Both Piatt and Flynn were obsessively focused on what they considered the bad optics of military personnel at the Capitol during the certification of the election," Matthews said.
"They both stated that they believed that what was transpiring at the Capitol was most appropriately handled by civilian law enforcement personnel," Matthews continued, "despite the fact the capabilities and resources of the U.S. Capitol Police and MPD were quickly being overwhelmed and the National Guard typically assists civilian police authorities in such circumstances."
If such claims are true, there could be a whole new can of worms opened regarding the response to Jan. 6.
