Col. Earl Matthews' reprisal claim for speaking out about January 6
Colonel Earl Matthews
Andrew Bakaj and Mark Zaid filed a whistleblower reprisal complaint on behalf of our client Colonel (COL) Earl Matthews, a Judge Advocate in the U.S. Army Reserve with the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, and former Acting General Counsel of the U.S. Army.
Prior to engaging Mark Zaid’s law firm and Whistleblower Aid, in December 2021 COL Matthews disclosed to the House January 6th Committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that, among other things, the Director of the Army Staff, Lieutenant General Walter E. Piatt and the Army’s former Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, now-General Charles A. Flynn, had not been completely factual or truthful in their June 2021 oral and written testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee or in their testimony to the DoD OIG. Furthermore, COL Matthews asserted that LTG Piatt had overseen the creation of a misleading, factually flawed, and revisionist recitation of events called the Report of Operations of the United States Army. Subsequently, LTG Piatt provided the factually flawed report to several committees of the U.S. Congress.
In October 2022, The Washington Post reported that President Biden declined to nominate LTG Piatt for promotion to full General due to concerns over his actions or inaction on and around January 6th. The October 2022 Washington Post article on the President’s decision not to nominate LTG Piatt referenced COL Matthews’ December 2021 disclosure, which had been critical of Piatt’s activities surrounding the events of January 6, 2021.
As a direct result of COL Matthews’ protected communications, Responsible Management Officials (“RMOs”) associated with the U.S. Army War College retaliated against him by, among other things: 1) falsely accusing him of misconduct and/or unprofessional behavior; 2) by abruptly curtailing a scheduled 12-day reserve duty assignment midway through; 3) by having COL Matthews physically and visibly escorted out of a publicly accessible hotel by security personnel; and 4) by providing COL Matthews’ name and likeness to military police personnel assigned onsite as a person of concern who might attempt to disrupt the military conference that Matthews had previously been assigned to support in his reserve capacity. In addition to causing him the loss of military pay and reserve retirement points, the retaliatory actions of the Army War College RMOs caused COL Matthews grievous reputational harm, significant personal embarrassment and public humiliation.
