K.T. McFarland, who President-elect Trump chose for his deputy national security adviser on Friday, has a history of tough talk against Russia and Turkey that could put her at odds with her soon-to-be boss, retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, who has been criticized for his ties to Moscow and Ankara.
As recently as late October, McFarland, who worked in Ronald Reagan’s Pentagon and most recently was a national security expert for Fox News and hosted a show called “DEFCON 3,” said the U.S. is already in a cyberwar with Russia amid allegations that Russians were attempting to influence the election in favor of Trump.
“Well it is scary, and I think we are already at war with Russia, we’re at cyberwar with Russia,” she said on Oct. 21. “If it is true that Russia has been trying to influence and sort of jigger up and scramble our elections, then that’s an act of war, it’s an act of cyberwar. What are we doing in response? I’m not quite sure we’re doing anything in response.”
She went on to suggest that the U.S. could impose economic sanctions as a means of retaliating.
On Turkey, in July McFarland discussed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, especially with respect to his treatment of the media.
“I’ve met him, he’s a nasty piece of work,” she said.
Also that month, she cheered the coup attempt on Erdogan during an appearance on Fox as events were unfolding, saying it was an opportunity to oust a dictator.
“Now when we think of coups we usually think the bad guys are coming in and removing democratically elected leaders. This could be just the opposite, that Erdogan, who was assembling more and more power at the expense of the military, at the expense of the courts, at the expense of the parliament, this could be a coup to really take power away from the authoritarian and put it back into a secular democracy.”
The comments stand in stark contrast to her new boss, Flynn, who has been accused of close dealings with the Russians and of profiting from his consulting firm’s ties to the Erdogan government.
In 2015, Flynn sat next to Russian President Vladimir Puting during a dinner in Moscow in honor of Kremlin-backed Russia Today, where he was a semi-regular guest and was flown in for the occasion. Flynn defended the appearance to the Washington Post in August.
“What I’m looking for is to make sure, in my view, I see a country that has lost respect for another country and if I have any sort of fiber in my body where I can help out to make sure they understand that we have people in our country who aren’t going to apologize for who we are,” he told the newspaper. “We’re not going to act in a soft way for what we believe needs to be done. I was very adamant about what I said. He knows exactly what I said.”
But the optics of the event has caused unease in national security circles. Most recently, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen questioned Flynn’s ties to Moscow.
“Certainly the trip to Russia where he’s sitting next to President Putin and his comments about Russian media tied to that raise questions, with respect, from my perspective and I think that’s obviously something that will unfold pretty quickly,” Mullen said Nov. 21.
Flynn’s business dealings with Turkey have also come under scrutiny since it came to light that his consulting firm signed a contract with a company that has ties to Erdogan. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said those dealings are troubling, along with the fact that Flynn wrote an op-ed calling for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen to Turkey. Ankara considers Gulen the mastermind behind the coup attempt.
“Recent news reports have revealed that Lt. Gen. Flynn was receiving classified briefings during the presidential campaign while his consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group, Inc., was being paid to lobby the U.S. Government on behalf of a foreign government’s interests,” Cummings wrote in a letter to Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
“Lt. Gen. Flynn’s general counsel and principal, Robert Kelley, confirmed that they were hired by a foreign company to lobby for Turkish interests.”
