Col. Earl Matthews, the top lawyer for the D.C. National Guard during the assault on the Capitol, said in a whistle-blower complaint that he was punished for contradicting the testimony of two top generals.

A former top lawyer for the D.C. National Guard has accused Army officials of retaliating against him for asserting to Congress that two top Army officers lied about why deployment of the Guard was delayed during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to a complaint filed with the Defense Department and obtained by The New York Times.

Col. Earl Matthews, who previously served in the Trump administration and was the top lawyer for the D.C. Guard during the Jan. 6 assault, said in the complaint that he was retaliated against after he accused two generals in a report to Congress of making false statements about the delayed deployment, an issue that has produced multiple and often conflicting accounts.

“It’s textbook whistle-blower retaliation. I wrote that memo because I saw real wrongdoing,” Colonel Matthews said in his first interview since the incident. “I love the United States Army. To me, this is about Army values.”