"Unmitigated Liars": Pentagon's Role In January 6 Riot

 

At some point, hopefully soon, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Trumpist insurrection will get answers about the role of key Pentagon officials in delaying the National Guard's deployment to the Capitol to protect our democracy. One uniformed individual they need to look closely at is Army Gen. Charles Flynn, the brother of notorious QAnon / Trumpist nutjob Michael Flynn, who was serving as deputy chief of staff for operations. According to a memo sent to the Committee from Col. Earl Matthews of the D.C. National Guard, the recent Pentagon Inspector General's report grossly misrepresented the roles of Flynn and Lt. General Walter Piatt, the director of the Army staff. From Politico:

"Matthews' memo, sent to the Jan. 6 select committee this month and obtained by POLITICO, includes detailed recollections of the insurrection response as it calls two Army generals — Gen. Charles Flynn, who served as deputy chief of staff for operations on Jan. 6, and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt, the director of Army staff — 'absolute and unmitigated liars' for their characterization of the events of that day. Matthews has never publicly discussed the chaos of the Capitol siege. [snip]

'Every leader in the D.C. Guard wanted to respond and knew they could respond to the riot at the seat of government' before they were given clearance to do so on Jan. 6, Matthews’ memo reads. Instead, he said, D.C. guard officials 'set [sic] stunned watching in the Armory' during the first hours of the attack on Congress during its certification of the 2020 election results.

Matthews' memo levels major accusations: that Flynn and Piatt lied to Congress about their response to pleas for the D.C. Guard to quickly be deployed on Jan. 6; that the Pentagon inspector general’s November report on Army leadership’s response to the attack was “replete with factual inaccuracies”; and that the Army has created its own closely held revisionist document about the Capitol riot that’s 'worthy of the best Stalinist or North Korea propagandist.'”  (our emphasis)

Gen. Flynn, who opposed the deployment of the National Guard after an urgent appeal from the U.S. Capitol Police, now serves -- shockingly -- as the commander, U.S. Army Pacific. He's memorably reported as saying the "optics" of deploying troops to the Capitol would be bad, violent insurrection notwithstanding. It's much more likely that he was hoping that his brother's cult leader in the Oval Office would succeed in overturning the election by force that day.