Mike Flynn is finding himself in the Fed’s eye once more. Is the Deep State trying to bare its fangs?
According to a Washington Post report, the retired Army general and former national security advisor to President Donald Trump failed to disclose foreign payments he received from Russian and Turkish interests in 2015 and is now being fined tens of thousands of dollars by the Department of Defense over it.
“Investigators determined that Flynn received nearly $450,000 from Turkish and Russian interests in 2015, including for an appearance in Moscow alongside President Vladimir Putin, but found no records that he had sought government approval beforehand,” the Post reports. The Moscow appearance was reportedly a gala dinner that celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Russian news agency RT.
The Washington Post stated it obtained a copy of a May 2 letter notifying Flynn that the Army is seeking $38,557.06 from him over foreign money he received. In the letter, Army lawyer Craig R. Schmauder accused Flynn of committing “a violation of the Emoluments Clause,” referring to a provision in Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution that reads:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
“When there is a finding that a military retiree has violated the Emoluments Clause, the United States Government may pursue a debt collection,” Schmauder wrote in his remarks to Flynn.
The Post noted of the behind-the-scenes lead-up to the recent reporting on Flynn’s latest run-in with the Pentagon:
The Army determined April 28 that Flynn violated the emoluments clause, Michael Brady, an Army spokesman, said in an email. The Army forwarded its findings to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, which calculates how much is owed and handles collection.
Flynn acknowledged the financial penalty in a television interview broadcast in May, saying the Defense Department was “going to reach into my retirement and … take some money out.”
“Yeah, it means something, but at the end of the day, this country means a heck of a lot more than what they will do to me,” Flynn said then, suggesting the punitive action was politically motivated.
Flynn is no stranger to being targeted by a vindictive federal government. He spent years caught up in the Justice Department’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, stepping down from his role as national security advisor to Trump just weeks into the administration. He pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contact he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., though he later said he did so out of duress to protect his family and sought to withdraw the guilty plea. He was ultimately pardoned by Trump in November 2020.
Flynn has been active since his pardon, following a busy speaker’s circuit throughout the country and endorsing candidates for all levels of office. Following the 2020 election, he encouraged President Trump to declare martial law and have elections redone in battleground states where fraud appeared to have occurred.
In December, Flynn sued the Jan. 6 committee, accusing it of “outrageous intrusion” by subpoenaing him and his family, and condemning the panel for the “secret seizure of his and his family’s personal information from their telecommunications and/or electronic mail service providers,” per the suit.
Notably, it was Flynn’s friend, retired Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, who revealed that U.S. Special Forces exchanged fire with CIA agents who had been running an election-fraud server farm in Frankfurt, Germany.
The ongoing persecution of Michael Flynn highlights one of the Left’s greatest hypocrisies. He became a target amid Democrats’ hysterical screeching about “Russian interference” in 2016 — when Trump’s detractors were claiming he was an illegitimate president because he allegedly “hacked” the election with Vladimir Putin’s help.
But now that the tables have turned and it’s the Right questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election, it has suddenly become utter blasphemy — even treason — to question election results.
As always, for the Left, it’s a matter of “do as I say, not as I do.”
