>>23358269

‘Absolute liars': Ex-D.C. Guard official says generals lied to Congress about Jan. 6Part II

At the time, Piatt was the director of Army staff, one of the top generals in the Pentagon, and Flynn was the Army’s director of operations. The two men were the highest-ranking Army officials who spoke on the 2:30 call, according to Matthews.

“LTG Piatt stated that it would not be his best military advice to recommend to the Secretary of the Army that the D.C. National Guard be allowed to deploy to the Capitol at that time,” Matthews wrote, adding: “LTGs Piatt and Flynn stated that the optics of having uniformed military personnel deployed to the U.S. Capitol would not be good.”

Piatt and Flynn suggested instead that Guardsmen take over D.C. police officers’ traffic duties so those officers could head to the Capitol, Matthews continues.

In addition to Matthews’ memo, POLITICO also obtained a document produced by a D.C. Guard official and dated Jan. 7 that lays out a timeline of Jan. 6. The D.C. Guard timeline, a separate document whose author took notes during the call, also said that Piatt and Flynn at 2:37 p.m. “recommended for DC Guard to standby,” rather than immediately deploying to the Capitol during the riot.

Four minutes later, according to that Guard timeline, Flynn again “advised D.C. National Guard to standby until the request has been routed” to then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and then-acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller.

Everyone on the call was “astounded” except Piatt and Flynn, Matthews wrote.

Both men, however, later denied to Congress that they had said the Guard shouldn’t deploy to the Capitol.

In response to a written question from House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) in June about whether Piatt advised anyone in the Guard’s chain of command not to deploy directly to the Capitol, Piatt wrote, “At no point on January 6 did I tell anyone that the D.C. National Guard should not deploy directly to the Capitol.”

That statement, Matthews says in his memo, is “false and misleading.”

Walker also testified to Congress in March that Piatt and Flynn expressed concerns about “optics.”

Further, Flynn told Maloney that he “never expressed a concern about the visuals, image, or public perception of” sending Guardsmen to the Capitol.

That answer, Matthews says in his memo, is “outright perjury.”

Matthews wrote that he and Walker “heard Flynn identify himself and unmistakably heard him say that optics of a National Guard presence on Capitol Hill was an issue for him. That it would not look good. Either Piatt or Flynn mentioned ‘peaceful protestors.’”

Flynn’s brother, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, promulgated a host of conspiracy theories in the lead-up to Jan. 6 and called for former President Donald Trump to impose martial law. Matthews’ memo does not insinuate that Gen. Charles Flynn’s actions on Jan. 6 were shaped by his brother, who has been subpoenaed by the select committee, and does not mention Michael Flynn.

The two generals told the House oversight committee that the Guard wasn’t ready to respond to the chaos that day, and Flynn testified to the House Oversight Committee in June that a “team of over 40 officers and non-commissioned officers immediately worked to recall the 154 D.C. National Guard personnel from their current missions, reorganize them, re-equip them, and begin to redeploy them to the Capitol.” Matthews says that assertion “constituted the willful deception of Congress.”

“If it does not constitute the willful and deliberate misleading of Congress, then nothing does,” Matthews wrote of Flynn’s statement. “Flynn was referring to 154 D.C. Guardsmen who were already on duty, were trained in civil disturbance response, already had area familiarization with Washington, DC, were properly kitted and were delayed only because of inaction and inertia at the Pentagon.”

In other words, Matthews indicates, the idea that it took 40 officers to get 154 National Guard personnel ready to go to the Capitol beggars belief.

Every D.C. Guard leader was desperate to get to the Capitol to help, Matthews writes — then stunned by the delay in deployment. Responding to civil unrest in Washington is “a foundational mission, a statutory mission of the D.C. National Guard,” his memo notes.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777

>>23358300

‘Absolute liars': Ex-D.C. Guard official says generals lied to Congress about Jan. 6Part III

That report states that McCarthy had to call Walker twice on Jan. 6 to order him to deploy the D.C. Guard. Matthews’ memo calls this “an outrageous assertion … as insulting as it is false,” and says McCarthy himself was “incommunicado or unreachable for most of the afternoon.”

The inspector general’s report says McCarthy arrived at the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department at 4:05 p.m., and that “witnesses told us that not having heard from MG Walker regarding any specific plan.” McCarthy and others present, including D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee, themselves drafted a comprehensive plan for the Guard’s deployment, according to the Pentagon watchdog.

The report further says that soon afterward, Miller and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reviewed that plan over the phone. Miller authorized the deployment of the D.C. Guard and McCarthy informed Walker of it during a call at 4:35 p.m; McCarthy then held apress conference with the D.C. mayor and called Walker again to reissue the order that he deploy the Guard, according to the Pentagon inspector general.

Matthews challenges that Jan. 6 timetable in his memo. He writes that D.C. Guard leaders “still have not seen this so-called plan developed by McCarthy and allegedly approved by Acting Secretary Miller at 4:32PM.” He adds that the idea that the Army secretary would give Guard personnel support for tactical planning and coordination is “patently absurd.”

Walker, meanwhile, has said no call happened between him and McCarthy at 4:35 p.m. The D.C. Guard’s Jan. 6 timeline — produced while Walker helmed the D.C. National Guard — does not document any phone call between McCarthy and Walker at 4:35.

Both McCarthy and Miller declined to comment.

Megan Reed, a spokesperson for the Pentagon inspector general, said their office stands by its report.

Matthews’ memo also homes in on a document that Army officials have referenced but never fully revealed, titled “Report of the Army’s Operations on January 6 2021.” In Matthews’ view, it lays out a fabricated timeline in a bid to burnish the Army’s reputation.

According to Matthews, Piatt helped produce the document after a series of bruising congressional hearings and news reports that damaged the reputations of Army senior leadership — among them, a Washington Post report that the Army falsely denied Flynn’s participation in the 2:30 p.m. phone call.

“In March 2021, MG Walker was told by a friend that LTG Piatt was so upset with MG Walker that he directed the development of an Army ‘White Paper’ to retell events of 6 January in a light more favorable to LTGs Flynn, Piatt, Secretary McCarthy and the Army Staff,” Matthews writes.

The Army Staff ultimately sought “to create an alternate history which would be the Army’s official recollection of events,” Matthews continues, adding: “The end product, a revisionist tract worthy of the best Stalinist or North Korea propagandist, was close hold,” kept secret from the public.

But members of Congress have seen the document. Piatt referenced it during a House Oversight Committee hearing in June when asked about conflicting recollections of the afternoon of Jan. 6.

“I would refer to the U.S. Army Report of Operations on January 6 that we submitted to this committee,” Piatt told lawmakers. “What the D.C. National Guard did in those short hours was extraordinary. Now when people’s lives are on the line, two minutes is too long. But we were not positioned to respond to that urgent request. We had to re-prepare so we would send them in prepared for … this new mission.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777

>>23358302

Alex Jones said that he had a "White House Contact" on Jan 06 and during congressional testimony Alex revealed that Caroline Wren was the White House Contact.

Caroline Wren with funding from Publix Heiress Julie Jenkins Fancelli via Women for America First, obtained a permit for the rally featuring former president Donald Trump.

Caroline Wren

https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinewren

Company website for Caroline Wren redirects to:

https://www.lindseygraham.com/

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Caroline Wren, president of BlueBonnet Fundraising

By POLITICO STAFF 10/10/2018 05:14 AM EDT

How/where are you celebrating your birthday and with whom?

“I have friends and family flying in from all over the country and @LoganDobson and I are having a joint birthday party at my house in D.C. on Friday including

(but not limited to) margarita machines, mariachi band, face painters, fog machine, mezcal bar, etc. @DaveCatanese is also expected to DJ for a portion of the evening.”

How did you get your start in politics?

“In 2007 for Christmas I asked my parents for a flight to New Hampshire to go and campaign forJohn McCain.

I showed up unannounced at the McCain New Hampshire HQ and luckily someone let me sleep on their floor and I spent a week waving McCain signs in the snow.

From then on I was hooked and ended up taking a semester off from Auburn University to work on the McCain campaign and I’ve been in politics ever since.”

What’s an interesting book/article you’re reading now or finished? And why?

“With the election less than a month away, I’m currently not reading anything other than Excel documents and direct mail copy.”

What is a trend going on in the U.S. or abroad that doesn’t get enough attention?

“The ‘Lindsey Graham for President 2024’ campaign :)”

How is the Trump presidency going?

“-3.7% unemployment … -Passed historic tax cuts … -Confirmed Gorsuch & Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court … -Massive rollback of unnecessary job-killing regulations … -

Recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital … -ended the War on Christmas. I’m not sick of winning.”

What’s a fun fact that people in Washington might not know about you?

“I love to travel and have visited over 35 countries including backpacking trips through Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/10/playbook-birthday-caroline-wren-886200