DC National Guard whistleblower claims Trump was stripped of his commander-in-chief powers on January 6

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 6 Select Committee's investigation.

He sat down with DailyMail.com two weeks after the public hearing to explain what he saw happen that day.

The Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, Matthews claims, was more than happy to lean into this narrative and blame the entire ordeal on the then-president.

But Matthews says that senior military leadership essentially stripped the president of his authority as commander-in-chief by preemptively planning to go against orders because they didn't like the optics of uniformed soldiers at the Capitol.

'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,' Matthews told DailyMail.com.

He continued: '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, who was the Staff Judge Advocate of the DCNG during the riot, was on the consequential and highly discussed phone call the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021 with McCarthy, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and other senior leadership.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13372839/DC-National-Guard-whistleblower-claims-Trump-stripped-commander-chief-powers-January-6.html