OAN’s Taylor Tinsley
4:55 PM – Wednesday, April 17, 2024
The Committee on House Administrations Oversight panel met to hear testimony from whistleblowers on why it took so long for the National Guard to respond to the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
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Lawmakers met for witness testimony in a hearing called “Three Years Later: D.C. National Guard Whistleblowers Speak Out on January 6 Delay” on Wednesday.
Chairman Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) kicked off the hearing by shedding light on a November 2021 report from the Department of Defense’s Acting Inspector General. The report detailed the DOD’s response to January 6th, claiming that the National Guard was deployed as soon as possible.
The Georgia Republican said it took three hours and 19 minutes to deploy troops on January 6th after receiving orders.
Those testifying Wednesday included:
Colonel Earl Matthews – Chief Legal Advisor, D.C. Army National Guard
Command Sergeant Major Michael Brooks – Senior Enlisted Officer, D.C. Army National Guard
Captain Timothy Nick – Aide-de-camp, D.C. Army National Guard
Brigadier General Aaron Dean – Adjutant General, D.C. Army National Guard
In regards to the Inspector General’s 2021 report, Loudermilk said the report concludes that the leader of the National Guard response, Maj. Gen. William Walker, received two orders from then U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy to deploy troops to the Capitol, once at 4:45 pm and again at 5:00 pm.
“Walker denies that either of these calls took place,” Loudermilk said. “Despite the many inconsistencies and contradictions of the DOD’s responsibility that day, the select committee on January 6th ignored these discrepancies despite them being shared privately by their own staff and barreled forward with the DOD’s side of the story.”
The hearing comes after the oversight panel published a never-before released transcribed interview from Trump’s former White House deputy chief of staff Anthony Ornato, which showed that the former president offered 10,000 National troops to secure the Capitol. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D-Washington D.C.), however, rejected the call.
Loudermilk said the now-defunct January select committee withheld Ornato’s “critical witness testimony from the American people because it contradicted their predetermined narrative.”
Colonel Earl Matthews accused two senior officers of the army, Gen. Charles Flynn and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt of lying to Congress and federal investigators about why it took so long to deploy the National Guard.
“That DOD IG report is replete with incorrect, false information,” Matthews said.
The inspector general blamed the delay on lack of coordination but all witnesses said the National Guard was ready, had the DOD told them to go when they were supposed to.
Matthews sent a memo to the House J6 committee as well as a Senate committee accusing the Army officers of misleading Congress after the 2021 report.
Since coming forward, Matthews hasn’t been promoted. This comes after a promotion board in November 2022 recommended he was one of the “best qualified” group of Army Reserve colonels to be promoted to brigadier general.
He later filed a complaint alleging retaliation for testifying to Congress and asked for those responsible to be reprimanded.
“If public confidence in the integrity of government operations is to be restored,” the complaint said, “he must be made whole and the responsible officials appropriately disciplined.”
Also during Wednesday’s testimony, Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Brooks, said the delay was due to Secretary McCarthy and other officials being more concerned about “optics.”
“I have no idea why we never received that order,” Brooks said. “All I do know is that they were more concerned with what it would look like with soldiers with the Capitol in the background than protecting the Capitol of the united states.”
Loudermilk said the hearing left them with more questions that need to be answered.
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