This has all the earmarks of a hole that’s going to get a whole lot deeper before it finally gets filled in — if it ever does. Michael Flynn was basically caught red-handed Sunday night when a number of people who were present in the audience took a video clip of him responding to a veteran’s question and saying that a Myanmar-level coup “should happen” and uploaded it to social media.
Flynn is backpedaling furiously, since calls for him to be recalled to service and then court martialed are taking place.
Tom Nichols teaches at the U.S. Naval War College and he posted the above statement from Flynn to the Atlantic.
Just a reminder that Mike Flynn, a retired three-star U.S. Army general, Trump's first National Security Adviser, and later admitted felon, spent the Memorial Day weekend supporting the idea of a violent military overthrow of the government of the United States of America.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 31, 2021
Is this manipulated media as well? Remember this treasure?
Here's Michael Flynn on Newsmax saying that Trump could order "military capabilities" to swing states and "rerun an election in each of those states."
"People out there talk about martial law like it's something that we've never done. Martial law has been instituted 64 times." pic.twitter.com/KNmiAGGiPF
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 18, 2020
Flynn is a propagandist, par excellence. He’s got a new election fraud movie coming out, “The Deep Rig” in a few weeks. He’s pushing the Big Lie for all that it’s worth because to do so lines his coffers. He was a staunch proponent of Lin Wood, telling everybody in South Carolina what a great guy Wood is and how nobody appreciates him. This is who Flynn is. He’s the grifter’s grifter and the con artist’s con artist.
Maybe Donald Trump should consider putting him on the 2024 ticket if he runs? They truly are cut from the same bolt of cloth, you couldn’t get a better match up.
People are researching the legalities of court martialing him.
Yes, Flynn’s still subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice as a retired Army officer. The constitutionality of jurisdiction over retirees for post-retirement offenses is something we’re currently challenging in the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces & the D.C. Circuit. https://t.co/RQThYguIP1
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) May 30, 2021
I hate to be cynical, but I do expect this to be just one more outrage that, at the end of the day, nobody does anything about and we all end up accepting it as part of the new normal.
It’s the “official” conference video. No one needed to do anything to it: he said what he said, it got out of the private-viewing section, and now he has to deal with the consequence, without the former guy to protect him.
I hate to be cynical too, but after all these years, it’s too hard to change. You’re probably right, and no more will likely be done about this than it will about anything else, including that dress rehearsal on 1/6.
They’ll get to him when he starts saying it to the media, not at private meetings.
People are put in prison for violating a trust. How does a former general calling for armed insurrection walk around free? Answer: the rich & powerful do what they want in a land of institutional hypocrisy.
Regarding the tweets posted by Vladeck and the “constitutionality” of subjecting retired military personnel to court-martial, here’s my humble thought: If the guy is allowed to use his military title AFTER he retires (especially for publicity and personal gain), then he should be subject to the EXACT SAME military regulations regarding treasonous speech that active-duty personnel face.
There should be a ban on the use of ANY honorific title after a person has retired from the job (especially for military titles and “sheriffs”) since there’s almost NEVER any real use for them beyond financial self-promotion.
Cousin retired from the Navy and stopped using his rank for nearly everything. (He was at O-7, in for more than 30 years.)
This is a totally tRump move. Say something and then say that’s not what you said and the media is getting it wrong. Even though we heard with our own ears.
And it’s on that video, too, where everyone can see/hear what he said.
Just a pity isn’t it that there’s actually recording of him saying just that (but as Rude Julie-Annie said – truth isn’t truth)
Alexander Vindman’s brother has Flynn’s number.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215484773
It’s just a very well worn page out of the tRUMP playbook,say something that gets recorded by a number of sources and then deny you ever said it.