Earl G. Matthews

Earl G. Matthews is the General Counsel of the Department of Defense. Appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, he was sworn in on July 31, 2025. As General Counsel, Mr. Matthews serves as the chief legal officer of the Department and the principal legal advisor to the Secretary of Defense. He is responsible for legal determinations and legal policy across the Department of Defense and its components. Mr. Matthews also serves as the Director of the Defense Legal Services Agency, which is comprised of the legal staffs assigned to the Defense Agencies and the Department of Defense Field Activities.

Immediately prior to assuming his current role, Mr. Matthews was a Senior Associate Counsel to the President in the Office of the White House Counsel. He joined the President's Department of Defense Transition Team as deputy team lead in November 2024 and served full time with the transition team until the start of the second Trump Administration. Mr. Matthews played a similar role on the Trump Department of Defense Transition Team during the 2016-17 presidential transition.

Prior to joining the Trump Transition Team in November 2024, Mr. Matthews was General Counsel and Head of Business Development for Neros Technologies, a manufacturer of unmanned defense systems headquartered in El Segundo, California. Immediately prior to that position, he served as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Albers Aerospace Corporation of McKinney, Texas, an aerospace and defense products and services provider. From July 2020 through December 2022, Matthews served as President of Veeam Government Solutions, the wholly owned federally focused subsidiary of Veeam Software Corporation.

Prior to his tenure in the private sector, Matthews held senior positions within the White House, the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community during President Donald J. Trump's first term. At the White House, Mr. Matthews served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Defense Policy and Strategy on the National Security Council staff, where he was responsible for the coordination and implementation of all defense policy matters which rose to the level of the President. Previous to his White House service in the first Trump Administration, Mr. Matthews was the Acting General Counsel/Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Department of the Army, where he directly advised the Secretary of the Army, the Under Secretary of the Army and the Assistant Secretaries of the Army on the formulation of policy for all Army programs to include procurement, and the organization, training, and readiness of all land forces. Mr. Matthews has also previously served as a Deputy Legal Counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as Special Counsel to the Director of National Intelligence, as a Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense and as both an attorney and an intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

A U.S. Army veteran of combat operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as extended operational deployments to Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Horn of Africa, Mr. Matthews continues to serve today as a Colonel in the Army Reserve, presently assigned to the Individual Ready Reserve. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Villanova University and holds a J.D. from the Harvard Law School, and master's degrees from the National Intelligence University, the Georgetown University Law Center and the U.S. Army War College. Mr. Matthews' personal awards and decorations include: the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service; the Department of the Army Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service; the Legion of Merit; the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service during combat operations (2); the Defense Meritorious Service Medal; the Meritorious Service Medal (2); the Joint Service Commendation Medal (2); the Joint Civilian Service Commendation Award; the Army Commendation Medal (4); the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal; the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal; the Afghanistan Campaign Medal; and the Iraq Campaign Medal.

Mr. Matthews previously served as a member of the Defense Business Board and the Virginia Commission to Combat Antisemitism.