Michael Flynn’s ridiculous defense of his coup comments, in context

Michael Flynn’s ridiculous defense of his coup comments, in context

Washington Post

By 

Aaron Blake

Senior reporter

June 2, 2021 at 12:48 a.m. GMT+9

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But it follows plenty of other remarkably similar episodes in which he did essentially the same thing.

The most recent example involves the former Trump White House national security adviser’s comments to a QAnon-themed conference in Texas this weekend.

A questioner asked him why “what happened in [Myanmar] can’t happen here.” The question refers to the military of Myanmar, also known as Burma, launching a coup against the country’s pro-democracy civilian leaders.

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After the audience cheered the idea of bringing that approach to the United States, Flynn responded that there was “no reason” such a thing couldn’t happen here.

“I mean, it should happen here,” he said, before repeating: “No reason.”

The comment led to all kinds of recriminations. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who has denounced her party’s efforts to question the legitimacy of the 2020 election, linked to a story about Flynn’s comments and said, “No American should advocate or support the violent overthrow of the United States.” Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a retired Navy commander, said Flynn’s comments “border on sedition” and suggested that he be tried under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

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Alas, Flynn is claiming that this is somehow a big misunderstanding.

“For all the fake news ‘journalists’: Let me be VERY CLEAR — There is NO reason whatsoever for any coup in America, and I do not and have not at any time called for any action of that sort,” Flynn claimed on social media. He added: “I am no stranger to media manipulating my words and therefore let me repeat my response to a question asked at the conference: There is no reason it (a coup) should happen here (in America).”

The first problem with this is Flynn’s cadence. He’s essentially arguing that the quote, “No reason. I mean, it should happen here,” is actually “No reason … it should happen here.” That’s at least plausible if you’re just reading the text. As you’ll see from the video, though, he emphasized the “should” in a way that makes his intent rather clear.

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The second reason is that Flynn has been down a very similar road before. In December, when President Donald Trump was contesting the results of the election, multiple reports indicated that Flynn had visited the Oval Office to discuss deploying the military to intervene. Trump responded by saying in a tweet, “Martial law = Fake News. Just more knowingly bad reporting!”

Except Flynn had pushed just such an idea even shortly before the Oval Office meeting. Flynn appeared on Newsmax and suggested deploying “military capabilities” to swing states to “rerun an election in each of those states.”

“People out there talk about martial law like it’s something that we’ve never done,” he said. “Martial law has been instituted 64 times.”

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Is the guy who suggested imposing martial law to rerun an election really the guy who is aghast at the idea that he would support a coup to overturn the same election?

The episode also bears plenty of similarities to past Flynn controversies.

Chief among them were his actions shortly before he joined the White House — the thing for which he would later face a federal investigation and plead guilty to a crime. (He was eventually pardoned by Trump.) Flynn initially denied both federal investigators, The Washington Post and (apparently) the Trump White House that he discussed the Obama administration’s sanctions on Russia for its 2016 election interference with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the month before Trump took office — something that raised questions about whether he was undermining the Obama administration, potentially illegally.

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Except those federal investigators had him on tape. Flynn’s team soon backed off its denial and said merely that he hadn’t recalled doing so. Trump said he fired Flynn for lying, although Flynn rather quickly found himself again in Trump’s good graces.

Perhaps the most illustrative example of where we find ourselves today with Flynn is with his more than dabbling in QAnon, an extremist ideology based on false claims.

In 2019, it was revealed that Flynn had signed a copy of his book with a QAnon slogan, “WWG1WGA” — shorthand for “Where we go one, we go all.” His son insisted that it had “ZERO to do with ‘Q.’”

“He was asked to write that,” Michael Flynn Jr. tweeted. “Enough of the conspiracy theories.”

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But then Flynn last summer posted a video in which he took an oath featuring the same slogan. Again, this was somehow a big misunderstanding, apparently, and had nothing to do with QAnon.

“The slogan comes from an engraved bell on JFK’s sailboat — acknowledging the unity of mankind,” said Sidney Powell, Flynn’s attorney. “The oath is obvious — the federal oath in support of our Constitution. He wanted to encourage people to think about being a citizen. Don’t read anything else into it.”

But by December, Flynn’s online store was selling QAnon-themed T-shirts and hats. It was certainly the latest odd move by someone who supposedly had no intention of being associated with such things.

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The through-line in all of this is Flynn doing things that undermine the U.S. government or seek to quite literally unseat those in power. At some point, you would think a man and a general who has gone through all of this would be more careful about the audience he courts, the things he says to it and the merchandise he sells.

Unless maybe it’s not the largest coincidence in modern American politics.