President Donald Trump has named former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, pardoned by Trump after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, to the board that oversees the West Point military academy.
Flynn said in January that the president needs to move against people who “committed treason” during the first Trump term, using the phrase “Night of the Long Knives,” which refers to a massive murderous purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler’s henchmen in 1934. In the same interview, Flynn called on incoming Attorney General Pam Bondi to “go to war against our own justice system.”
When Trump called in to a far-right ReAwaken America Tour stop in 2023 and promised to bring Flynn back into the White House, Right Wing Watch published a list of twelve reasons Trump’s pledge was “a five-alarm threat to democracy.” Here they are, with minor edits to reflect passage of time:
- Flynn called for martial law. Flynn backed Trump’s efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 presidential election. In December 2020, Flynn promoted a call for Trump to declare martial law and use the military to oversee a new election.
- Flynn told far-right activists not to accept Trump’s defeat. On the eve of the Jan 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Flynn spoke at a rally emceed by Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander, where speakers mingled Christian nationalism and threats of violence, where Flynn insisted, “We should not accept this.”
- Flynn took the Fifth on Jan. 6 violence. When asked by the House Committee investigating the attack on the Capitol whether he thought the violence that day was justified, Flynn refused to answer, citing the Fifth Amendment.
- Flynn partners with far-right figures. He has teamed up with far-right activist John Guandolo, who praised the Jan. 6 insurrectionists for “restraint” and said “it is amazing to me that patriots haven’t strung up these traitors already with the amount of evidence on the table of what they’re doing.” Guandolo trains right-wing citizens “to take over their towns, arrest, their mayors, and destroy the lives of anyone who objects by publicly humiliating them, getting them fired from their jobs, and forcing them to move away,” Right Wing Watch reported in 2022.
- Flynn is a close ally of Sidney Powell: Powell is a lawyer who notoriously promoted wild conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen, undermining confidence in elections and helping to fuel the rage of Trump’s supporters. Powell, who filed lawsuits in an unsuccessful effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, also represented Flynn in his effort to overturn his convictions. In a prayer call with religious-right dominionists in Dec. 2020, Flynn called Powell a “spiritual warrior” and his—and America’s—“guardian angel of justice.”
- Flynn starred in the far-right ReAwaken America Tour. Flynn partnered with right-wing conspiracy theorist and podcaster Clay Clark in this traveling roadshow of conspiracy theories, disinformation and Christian nationalism. ReAwaken America events were consistently filled with radical right-wing activists peddling wild conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, the COVID-19 pandemic, child sex-trafficking, and much more. Flynn was one of the most popular speakers on the tour; he told crowds to get engaged in America’s “spiritual war” and “political war.”
- Flynn makes the Christian nationalist threat clear: "If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God," Flynn said at a ReAwaken America event in 2021.
- Flynn is a warrior in the right’s dishonest and damaging war on “wokeness.” Right-wing activists have turned “woke” into a catch-all slam against efforts to promote diversity, respect, inclusion, and teaching about racism. Flynn has campaigned for right-wing school board members and said that some of the “WOKE SOB’s” serving on school boards “just need to be arrested.”
- Flynn has promoted QAnon. Flynn posted an infamous video of he and his family taking an oath that was linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory movement, whose adherents believe that high-ranking Democratic officials, Hollywood elites, and business executives are part of a global, satanic child trafficking ring that takes part in ritual sexual abuse of children and cannibalization.
- Flynn had his eye on the FBI Director’s job. "General Flynn on social media has made quite a bit of noise about being Trump's next FBI director," noted prominent QAnon adherent Dave Hayes (aka The Praying Medic) during an appearance on the QAnon-promoting “prophetic” network Elijah Streams. Hayes said Flynn’s attempts to distance himself from QAnon were simply part of a public relations strategy to smooth the path for him to become FBI director.
- Flynn owes Trump bigly. Flynn admitted to lying to FBI officials investigating contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, but was granted an extremely broad pardon by Trump after the 2020 election.
- The world Flynn wants the power to build: “Flynn’s movement envisions Christianity as the basis of American life and institutions; where the right to bear arms is paramount; where abortion is illegal; where concepts such as systemic racism and gay or transgender rights have no place in the schools; and where people who disagree are called 'Marxists,' or perverts, and are excluded from American civic life,” AP and Frontline reported [in 2022].
Flynn welcomed self-described “secretary of retribution” Ivan Raiklin to the board of America’s Future, Inc., which Flynn chairs, last year. Raiklin has called for mass arrests of government officials, civil society advocates, and members of the media who he believes should be “criminalized for their treason.” At a press conference last year, Raiklin made it clear that he is hoping some of the people on his “Deep State target list” will be executed.
Flynn’s habit of promoting misinformation and conspiracy theories was on display last fall when he promoted social media claims that Hurricane Helene was the result of “weather modification operations” connected to the Department of Defense.
Flynn also appeared last year on “Fight Back with Jake Shields,” a podcast with a record of welcoming virulently antisemitic and racist commentators. Flynn said he’s a “big fan” of Shields.
Flynn’s PAC backed a number of right-wing groups that worked to put Trump back in office, TPM reported last year.
Other MAGA figures appointed to military academy oversight boards to fill vacancies created in Trump’s earlier ideological purge include TPUSA’s Charlie Kirk, former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, former White House valet Walt Nauta, and Maureen Bannon, who helps run her father Steve’s podcast. It’s not clear what kind of expertise any of them will bring to the position other than unquestioning loyalty to Trump and a zeal to further wage an “anti-woke” war on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the U.S. military, a war that has already resulted in a ban on a dozen student clubs at West Point and ideological censorship purges from the Department of Defense website and Arlington National Cemetery.
