Michael Flynn

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Michael Flynn at a campaign rally for then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump, October 2016.

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Michael Thomas Flynn ("General Misha")^[2] (1958–) is a retired United States Army Lieutenant General; he served from 1981–2014, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2012-2014 under President Barack Obama. After retirement in 2014, he established the lobbying company Flynn Intel Group (FIN), where his son (Michael G. Flynn) served as the chief of staff.^[3][4]

During Donald Trump's 2016 campaign for president, Flynn served as one of his advisers, and was tasked with improving relations with Russia.^[5] Flynn served as the National Security Advisor under Donald Trump from January 20 – February 13, 2017, the shortest tenure in the history of that office. Flynn also had a brief advisory role at Cambridge Analytica, which advised the Trump campaign and is alleged to have engaged in illegal behavior.^[6] He currently lives in Englewood, Florida.^[7][8][9]

To Russia with love[edit]

FIN was accused in November 2016 by former-NSA agent John Schindler of receiving money from both Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdoğan via intermediaries.^[10] FIN received $530,000 from Inovo, a Dutch-based company owned by Kamil Ekim Alptekin who is close to Erdoğan; the money was paid for FIN to investigate Fethullah Gülen who was accused by Erdogan of being behind a coup attempt.^[11]

On December 1, 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to the crime of making "materially false statements and omissions" (a felony) to the FBI on January 24, 2017.^[12] The false statements were with regard to:^[12]

• "Flynn's request to the Russian Ambassador [Sergey Kislyak] that Russia refrain from escalating the situation in response to U.S. sanctions against Russia"
• "Flynn's request that foreign officials vote against or delay a United Nations Security Council Resolution"
• "Flynn's contacts with foreign government" (specifically Turkey)

In exchange for this deal of pleading guilty to the single criminal charge and under continued threat of being charged with other crimes, Flynn agreed to fully cooperate with investigators.^[13]

Following Flynn's guilty plea, and the judge in the case asking for more information about it, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, US Representative Darrel Issa, and Fox News's Jeanine Pirro all claimed that the judge would expose prosecutorial misconduct and throw out the plea (basically claiming that Flynn was innocent and duped).^[14] Putting a kibosh on that idea, however, was the near-simultaneous unsealing of an indictment against Flynn’s business partners Bijan Kian and Kamil Ekim Alptekin for illegally acting as foreign agents of Turkey and conspiring to have Fethullah Gülen deported from the US to his native Turkey.^[15]

Coup plotter[edit]

On November 25^th, 2020, Flynn was pardoned by Trump during his lame duck period.^[16]

Flynn publicly suggested that Trump declare martial law so that the latter could force a 'redo' of the 2020 election, which Trump lost.^[17] The idea later involved his brother, active duty Lt. Gen. Charles A. Flynn, during the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot. Michael Flynn has garnered interest for his possible involvement in the attempted coup on January 6. The Congressional January 6 Committee attempted to interview him but he pleaded the Fifth Amendment to every question, even to "Do you believe the violence on January 6th was justified morally?"^[18]

Flynn has become a central figure in QAnon and has espoused QAnon messaging,^[17] and members of his family are 'enmeshed' in QAnon, having sworn the "digital soldier oath".^[19][20]:10

On May 30^th 2021, during a QAnon conference in Dallas, Texas, Flynn was asked by a member of the audience if "what happened in Minamar^[sic]" could happen in the United States. This, of course, was referencing the military coup that happened in Myanmar in February 2021. As QAnon believers were already participants in a much more amateurish attempted coup on January 6^th 2021, predictably the audience erupted in cheers at this question. Flynn's response to this seditious wish was "No reason, I mean, it should happen here. No reason. That's right."^[21][22] Flynn quickly backtracked from these statements the next Monday, complaining that the "media" was "manipulating my words" and tried to weakly retcon the above quote into something less seditious.^[23]

On December 18, 2020, days after the Electoral College had certified Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, a group of high-level kooks showed up at the White House. The kooks were not officially invited but were let in by a junior staffer and gained access to Trump anyway. The kooks included Flynn, conspiracy theorist Patrick Byrne, Trump's bogus election fraud lawyer Sidney Powell, disbarred Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others. What ensued was a prolonged and heated exchange between the kooks and White House lawyers. The kooks managed to convince Trump that by various connivances the election could be overturned even though they knew this would have been illegal and/or unconstitutional. Trump was convinced by the kooks and sent out the notorious "be there, will be wild" tweet in the early morning hours of the 19^th, setting the stage for incitement of the coup attempt on January 6^th, 2021.^[24]

ReAwaken America Tour[edit]

A few months after the coup attempt failed, Flynn (along with an Oklahoma entrepreneur named Clay Clark and some seed money from Patrick Byrne)^[25] launched a traveling roadshow called the ReAwaken America Tour. The tour was dedicated to spreading the message of Trump's Big Lie in parallel with promoting Christian nationalism.^[26] These events thus mixed the charismatic religious fervor found in many evangelical churches (along with elements used in these worship services such as contemporary praise music and religious symbols) with nakedly political and/or conspiracy theory elements that parallel support of Trump's Big Lie, such as support of the anti-vaccination movement, support of QAnon, and opposition of Black Lives Matter.^[27][28]

Guest speakers typically include a mixture of far-right and/or conspiracy nutjob figures (such as Mike Lindell, Alex Jones, Simone Gold, Sherri Tenpenny, Roger Stone, and Flynn himself) along with radical Dominionist "preachers" such as Greg Locke and Mark Burns.^{[26][25][29][30]} Speeches at this event predictably contained plenty of antisemitic, racist, sexist, and homophobic rhetoric purportedly in the name of Christianity, along with elements of violence and coded profanities such as "Let's Go Brandon".^[31][32]

In May 2023, Rachel Maddow and Media Matters for America highlighted that two Rumble personalities on the ReAwaken America tour (both of whom were aligned with Eric Trump), Scott McKay (aka "Patriot Streetfighter") and Charlie Ward, had a long history of making statements that were not just antisemitic, but were pure pro-Hitler propaganda.^[33][34][35]

Despite the clear political element of these events, most of them were held at churches.^[28]

Due to the blatantly naked political (and perhaps even heretical) nature of these events, as well as Flynn's controversial Christian nationalism advocacy of a single nationalized religion for the United States, the event was very controversial even among Christians. Many Christian leaders, as well as Christian groups formed to oppose the rise of Christian nationalism in the wake of Donald Trump,^{[note 1]} have condemned, pushed back, and protested against Flynn's roadshow.^{[29][36][31][37]}

What goes around comes around[edit]

Despite being one of the main public promoters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, by 2025 Flynn was himself being accused by some QAnon followers of being part of QAnon himself and having orchestrated the botched January 6 attacks on the US Capitol.^[38] Curiously, Flynn regarded this as undesirable attention ("Speaking for myself, the Flynn Family is done being a f’ing pin cushion for the mob (sorry for the Irish). Have a nice day.").^[38][39]

Fascism[edit]

Flynn, along with some other MAGA leaders, wrote an endorsement for the book written by noted fascist Jack Posobiec titled Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them)^[40] The title would seem to be an only slightly-veiled reference to Nazi Germany's term for people deemed as undesirable by the regime, Untermensch (or "subhuman").^[41][42] Flynn's book endorsement states:^[43]

See also[edit]

• Paul Manafort
• Mueller investigation
• Trump-Russia connection

External links[edit]

• Michael Flynn at the Encyclopedia of American Loons

Notes[edit]

References[edit]