Dr Malone worked on Army research that developed the mRNA technology, not the mRNA application to COVID.
I dunno about an Army connection. His first paper, co-authored with Felgner and Verma in 1989, is the one that puts him on the map. Salk Institute. He may well have had more to do with the paper than his co-authors. This is where his “inventor” claim originates:
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/86/16/6077.full.pdf