Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn warned that the United States faces an unprecedented threat from the inside, made most clear after the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s raid on Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida, earlier this week.
The former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and national security adviser to Trump said that despite the many external threats to the United States, such as the Chinese regime and Iran, “the greatest threat to our country right now is clearly internal.”
“The security state complex and the complexity of the security state—as it has grown in leaps and bounds and bounds in the last 20 years or so—it is now overtaking our system of government and our rule of law,” Flynn said in an Aug. 11 interview with the “Capitol Report” program on NTD Television Network. “We can no longer deny that.”
Flynn said he was not surprised by the raid on the former president’s Mar-a-Lago property, as he had plenty of experience being targeted by the FBI.
The former national security adviser was the subject of an FBI investigation in 2016 while the agency was probing alleged connections between the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. The FBI had little reason or cause to suspect the campaign, and documents later released by the Department of Justice revealed that many agents believed that Flynn’s case should be closed.
In late 2017, Flynn was charged with lying to the FBI during a January 2017 interview about the calls between him and former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. While Flynn initially pleaded guilty, he withdrew his plea later in the same year.
The DOJ moved to drop the charge in May 2020 after they discovered that the FBI had no legitimate purpose in questioning Flynn about the calls with Kislyak other than trying to catch him in a lie. The case against Flynn was dismissed in late 2020 after Trump pardoned the retired general.
“The FBI had a had a phony case against me for over four years,” Flynn said.
“It was an absolute persecution by the Department of Justice and the FBI, and, frankly elements of the previous White House, that we now know is completely false. They knew it from the beginning. Just as they know what is going on here with President Donald J. Trump,” Flynn said, referring to the FBI raid.
The raid was reportedly carried out in connection with the DOJ investigation into whether Trump took president records with him after he left office, though Trump returned 15 boxes worth of documents and materials back in January that he had previously taken from the White House. The official justification for the search warrant remains sealed, although the DOJ made a motion on Thursday to unseal the warrant after intense pressure and scrutiny.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, in the department’s first comments on the matter on Thursday, admitted he personally approved the decision to seek the search warrant. He declined to provide further details on the search, citing federal and ethical obligations, but said the “department does not take such a decision lightly.”
“Where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search, and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken,” Garland said.
Flynn expressed disappointment in the FBI’s actions.
“For these people to go in there and do something that egregious, that un-American, I am really, beyond upset,” Flynn said. “I absolutely stand with President Donald J. Trump and his family.”
Flynn argued that the only way to counter what’s happening to the country’s democratic institutions is for the citizenry to get out and vote.
“We can’t have 30 percent turnout. In primaries, we can’t have 60 percent turnout. In general elections, we have to have 100 percent turnout—people have to show up to the game,” he said. “People must wake up; quit denying the fact that we are on the precipice of losing our entire system of government, our entire democracy.
“People must now stand up and step up, and get out and participate, and make your voices heard,” he concluded.
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