Michael Flynn

Mike Flynn is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who was Donald Trump’s first National Security Advisor. In December 2020, Flynn echoed calls for Trump to “immediately declare a limited form of Martial Law, and temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian control of these federal elections, for the sole purpose of having the military oversee a re-vote.” As the Military Times noted: “By expressing these views publicly and in the Oval Office, Flynn tried to give the military the central role in determining the election outcome — a role the Constitution does not assign and that senior military leaders have been at pains to avoid for the past year. Flynn used his own rank and military status to lend credibility to ideas that are manifestly illegal and harmful to the Republic.” Flynn even suggested to a QAnon audience that the U.S. should have a coup like Myanmar. Trump has supported bringing Flynn back into his administration if he were to win.

In 2020, Flynn also told his fans, “Freedom never kneels except for God.” He has also spoken at events organized by a fringe group that calls itself the “Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association,” whose members claim to be “constitutional” or “sovereign” sheriffs whom federal and state authorities are subordinate to and who purportedly can legally intervene in elections.

After serving as a top advisor in Afghanistan, Flynn spent two years, from 2012-2014, helming the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) before being forced to retire by the Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, Jr., due to his “chaotic” management style and “disruptive” vision of national intelligence analysis, though some praised him. Colin Powell, George W. Bush’s former Secretary of State, wrote that he had heard Flynn was forced to retire because he was “abusive with staff, didn’t listen, worked against policy, bad management, etc.” Chris Christie’s presidential transition team for Trump had opposed Flynn becoming National Security Advisor because he was considered to be a “loose cannon.” Flynn’s “dubious assertions”—such as asserting that Shariah law was on the rise in the U.S.—were reportedly “so common” that when he ran the DIA “subordinates came up with a name for the phenomenon: They called them ‘Flynn facts.’”

He gained public notoriety during the 2016 Republican National Convention when he assailed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and encouraged the crowd to chant “Lock her up!” He goaded them on, saying “Damn right, you’re exactly right!” He had become a foreign policy advisor to Trump’s presidential campaign earlier that year.

As Flynn became a Trump insider in 2016, the U.S. Intelligence Community learned in their lawful, routine monitoring of foreign agents abroad that “Russian officials bragged in conversations during the presidential campaign that they had cultivated a strong relationship with former Trump adviser retired Gen. Michael Flynn and believed they could use him to influence Donald Trump and his team.”

In 2013, Flynn had addressed the Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU, in Moscow, and had reportedly had a call with Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, to coordinate that trip. The following year, in 2014, an FBI informant reported to the Intelligence Community that Flynn’s “closeness” to a Russian woman attending the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar (CIG) led to a “warning to the American authorities that Mr. Flynn could be compromised by Russian intelligence.” Subsequently, concerns that the CIG had been targeted by the Kremlin led top officials, like the former head of MI6, to back away from the group.

In 2015, Flynn sat at a table with Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President, at a Moscow gala for RT, a Russian government TV outlet that sometimes featured Flynn as a commentator. RT also paid Flynn at least $45,000 for giving a speech as part of the RT event. An investigation by the Pentagon’s Inspector General ultimately found that Flynn had violated the Constitution’s bar on receiving foreign “emoluments” and had violated DOD regulations by failing to disclose these financial engagements.

In 2016, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, attended a “diplomacy event” connected to the RNC in Cleveland that an untold number of Trump advisors attended, including Jeff Sessions and Carter Page. Subsequently, as monitoring diplomatic channels revealed that Russian intelligence claimed to be in a position to influence Flynn, in August 2016, the FBI opened an inquiry into whether Flynn was “involved in activity on behalf of the Russian Federation which may constitute a federal crime or threat to the national security” of the U.S., as part of its “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation.

After the November 2016 presidential election, Flynn and Jared Kushner met with Kislyak in Trump Tower. Flynn then spoke repeatedly with Kislyak over the next two months as the Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia in response to the unanimous findings of all of the U.S. Intelligence Community that Russia had sought to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. Flynn then lied to several officials that he had not spoken with Kislyak about the sanctions, which further compromised him because Russian officials could use those lies against him.

After Inauguration, as Trump’s National Security Advisor, Flynn helped organize a plan to ease the sanctions against Russian and deal with Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in a way that was favorable to Russia, a plan that was said to be “organized outside regular diplomatic channels … at the behest of top aides to President Putin.” Meanwhile, Flynn was interviewed by two FBI counter-intelligence agents and lied to them, providing answers contradicted by the record. Subsequently, Flynn was fired from his post.

Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, but after Trump lost the 2020 election he pardoned Flynn in November 2020. Before that, as of at least July 2020, Flynn had been participating in a recurring so-called “Election Integrity Call” focusing on “the election remediation process at the state level” with Trump lawyers like John Eastman and Lin Wood, who would later play a key role in trying to subvert the 2020 presidential election.

Flynn’s involvement in the events leading up to the violent January 6 insurrection is well-documented, as PBS Frontline notes: “Flynn was a leader of the ‘Stop the Steal’ effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Flynn sat in the front row at a rally near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, when then-President Trump urged his supporters to march on the Capitol.” Flynn invoked the Fifth Amendment before the January 6 Committee and refused to say whether he believed in a peaceful transition of power.

He has also called for the Attorney General to “move to dismiss every case the DOJ brought regarding [January 6th] to any court in the land and rescind or seek to commute every sentence of those serving time for this continuing egregious abuse of justice. And while he’s at it, he should seek the resignation of FBI Director Wray.”

Flynn also continues to push the “Big Lie” on social media platforms: “Hey all of you on the left, take your conspiracy theories and put them where the sun doesn’t shine…and no, I don’t believe OBiden [sic] won fair and square in 2020 either. And don’t call me an election denier again…I don’t deny we have elections, I deny that our election system is fair—it is anything but!”

Since the end of Trump’s administration, Flynn has become the “center of a new movement based on conspiracies and Christian nationalism.” He chairs a group called “America’s Future,” a 501(c)(3) nonprofit rooted in the original “America First” group that opposed America fighting Nazi Germany and was launched in 1946 by retail executive Robert Wood, a conspiracy theorist who went on to oppose Brown v. Board of Education and aid Joe McCarthy’s smears. Through this group, he and his family profit off of trafficking conspiracy theories: an analysis by Issue One revealed that America’s Future has paid Flynn’s family more than $510,000 in 2021-2022, when the group’s fundraising totaled about $3.7 million.

America First gave more than $976,000 to “Cyber Ninjas” which orchestrated the faux, discredited “audit” of Maricopa County’s 2020 presidential election results. Records show Flynn was involved in procuring a facility for the “audit” and communicated with key figures like Doug Logan and Patrick Byrne. In messages to Logan, Byrne wrote that Flynn “has been talking to some senators who … are going to fight like hell on your behalf” adding “Flynn tells me: if they get away with watering this down then we are finished as a nation.”

America’s Future has also filed several amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court, including in the Colorado insurrectionist bar case, the bump stock case, the affirmative action case, and the case underwritten by billionaire Charles Koch seeking to reverse the legal precedent called Chevron Deference that requires federal judges to defer to agency expertise when reasonable regulations are challenged in court. These are cases aligned with the agenda of anti-abortion operative Leonard Leo, who hand-picked the justices Trump placed on the Supreme Court. Notably, some of Flynn’s earliest political activities were in the anti-abortion protest movement as part of Catholics for Life. The Republican Attorneys General Association, whose biggest funder is Leonard Leo’s network of groups, filed an amicus brief in support of dismissing federal criminal charges against Flynn.

Flynn has also repeatedly starred in the far-right ReAwaken America Tour, where he has partnered with conspiracy theorist and podcaster Clay Clark to spread disinformation and Christian Nationalism. As recently as April 2024, Flynn asserted that America is a Christian country and attempted to use the founding documents to push this narrative, despite the Constitution’s express bar on establishment of religion and on any religious test for office: “Our founders wanted a constant connection between the founding Judeo-Christian principles and values that our country was formed upon.”

Flynn also created a movie about himself that he promotes on Twitter, places advertisements on the stage backgrounds at his rallies, and alludes to conspiracy theories to sell products: “Be prepared for whatever the globalists throw at us. Stockpiling prescription medications is as important as guns, ammo and food, which is why you need The Wellness Company’s medical emergency kit. Go to http://twc.health/patriottv and order today. Use the promo code PATRIOTTV to save 10%.”

Flynn has also made numerous anti-Muslim comments, and promotes conspiracy theories related to “globalists” and illegal immigration, such as claiming, “This isn’t just happening in NYC. As I travel all across the country, this invasion force of illegals is settling into every city and town in America. NYC is simply the most visible because if NYC turns into a $h!th0!e, the rest of our nation won’t be far behind.”