Army Colonel J6 Witness: 'Milley Is the Don Barzini of the Deep State'
By Neil W. McCabe | 10:19 AM on January 10, 2024 The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.
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The colonel and Army lawyer challenging the Army's official narrative of the events and leadership decisions during the Capitol Hill protests on Jan. 6, 2021—a narrative relied upon by the Colorado Supreme Court when it struck President Donald J. Trump from the ballot — told RedStatethen-Chairman ofthe Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley was the black hand operating outside his legal authority to delay the District of Columbia National Guard from responding the protests that day.
“Milley is the Don Barzini of the Deep State," said Col. Earl G. Matthews, the Harvard Law School graduate, who was the senior legal advisor to Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the D.C. National Guard's commanding general from March 2018 through April 2021.
“He's the most powerful chairman of the joint chiefs in history,” Matthews said. “It was Milley all along, and I didn't realize it. Milley was manipulating this entire stuff from point start.”
The former Guardsman, now serving in the Army Reserve, said that as the joint chiefs chairman, Milley had no legal role in the chain of command; he was simply the president's senior military advisor. However, Milley leveraged his staff in the Pentagon and exploited his relationships with other generals he mentored and favored for promotion so that he ran the Army as his own feudal possession."Milley controlled the Army,” Matthews said.
"The problem was not with Donald Trump; it's Mark Milley and the Army leadership in control.They stopped the Guard from coming then lied about it and said the Guard acted at sprint speed," he said.
“This is about civilian control of the military,” he said. “There was none. There is none. I argue that — Mark Milley had more control over the D.C. Guard on Jan. 6 than Donald Trump did — if Donald Trump wanted to call the Guard to go to the Capitol, Milley wouldn’t let him do it,” he said.
Milley modeled himself after Maj. Gen. Fox Connor, the general who mentored Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and other general officers, he said. “When I was with him, he used to always quote Fox Connor,” he said.
“He admired Connor. He felt like he was an incarnation of Fox Connor, so there were certain generals he was advancing. McConville was one. Flynn was another; another was Walter Piatt, who worked for Milley on numerous occasions," he said.
Retired Gen. James C. McConville succeeded Milley as Army chief of staff from 2019 to 2023. Gen. Charles A. Flynn, brother of retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, is now the commanding general of the U.S. Army Pacific. Retired Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt was the director of the Army Staff on J6, and he retired in 2024 after his fourth star and assignment to lead U.S. Army Futures Command was shelved over concerns he could not get Senate confirmation because of his own J6 role.
Milley's relationship with Piatt was cemented by the fact both men were commanding generals of the 10th Mountain Division, so, through Piatt, Milley exercised control of the D.C. National Guard and the Army as if Secretary of the Army Ryan D. McCarthy was just a bystander, Matthews said.
He said that McCarthy was a former Army Ranger captain who naturally deferred to Milley. The colonel said it isessential to understand that, unlike the National Guards in the states and territories in the nation's capital, the National Guard is not controlled by a governor; instead, it is under the president's direct control. In practice, Trump and other presidents delegated active control of the D.C. National Guard to the Army Secretary.
Matthews said Milley was always joking about this unique command and control structure. "When Milley would call over, he would always say: 'I've got your governor on the line,' which meant it was McCarthy."…
https://redstate.com/mccabe/2024/01/10/army-colonel-j6-witness-milley-is-the-don-barzini-of-the-deep-state-n2168511