The Michael Flynn saga represents perhaps the greatest damage the FBI has done to itself and its reputation since the extent of J. Edgar Hoover’s abuses became public. Regardless of how Judge Emmet Sullivan rules given Flynn’s previous guilty plea, every official questioned in the future by the FBI will either assume the FBI is on a political witch hunt or will use the Flynn case as an excuse to sully legitimate investigations. But just because the FBI’s case against Flynn was tainted from the beginning, if not fraudulent, does not absolve Flynn of tremendous lapses of judgment. Flynn’s vindication in court should not erase a track record of destructive positions in the face of U.S. adversaries.
As a general, Flynn excelled in the fight against al Qaeda. He held a number of intelligence posts, including director of intelligence of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan from June 2009 to October 2010. President Barack Obama nominated Flynn to be director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in April 2012, and he took the helm that summer, ultimately serving two years. His clashes with senior Obama administration officials ultimately led to his unceremonious dismissal and the start of a grudge match still being played out by both. The rest is history.
I first met Flynn at a 2015 American Conservative Union event to discuss the Iran nuclear deal, which was then nearing fruition. Flynn gave the keynote, and I was a panelist. Everyone on the panel opposed the nuclear deal; even Democrats at the time felt uncomfortable with it — hence the need for Sens. Bob Corker (a Republican) and Ben Cardin (a Democrat) to craft a deal not to allow it to go through the Senate with only one-third support. There were many good reasons to criticize what became known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, not the least of which was that Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry crossed each of their declared redlines.
But Flynn’s unpreparedness or lack of grasp of the details of Iran, its nuclear program, and its security apparatus was shocking. Political polemic had trumped substance.
Flynn’s “lock her up” antics at the 2016 Republican National Convention may have been red meat for Trump partisans, but they effectively endorsed the same type of criminalization of the policy debate that continues to poison politics and discourse to the long-term detriment of the U.S, and to which he subsequently fell victim.
Flynn’s poor judgment continued. His decision to attend the December 2015 RT Gala, an event for which he was paid $45,000, was inexcusable. Not only had he allowed himself to seemingly endorse an adversary’s propaganda outlet, but he also allowed himself to be used by Russian President Vladimir Putin. If Flynn did not realize this was occurring, that only raises greater questions about his ability to confront the broad and sophisticated array of American adversaries. In effect, Flynn’s trip to Moscow was little different than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Damascus to meet Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. Flynn’s supporters may cheer him overcoming FBI persecution, but they should simultaneously want something more than Pelosi version 2.0.
Not all of Flynn’s missteps involved Russia. On Election Day 2016, Flynn published an op-ed in the Hill calling on the U.S. to further embrace Turkey’s dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan and extradite dissident cleric Fethullah Gülen from his Pennsylvania compound. The article itself made little sense.
First, it ignored ample evidence that Erdogan was supporting and supplying al Qaeda affiliates in Syria, if not the Islamic State itself. Second, anyone who had spoken to Flynn or heard him publicly speak understood immediately that his article was likely ghostwritten as Flynn was not ordinarily conversant in Turkish affairs. This is why I had, at the time, speculated that Flynn’s op-ed could be “Team Trump’s First Ethics Scandal.” Third, the arguments in Flynn’s op-ed stood in sharp contrast to his previous statements about Turkey. It was almost as if he had been paid to write the op-ed and, indeed, that appears to be what occurred. Multiple Turks say that Ekim Alptekin, a Turkish businessman who apparently helped bankrolled Flynn’s efforts, sought to ingratiate himself to Erdoğan in order to perhaps win an appointment to be foreign minister (a notion Alptekin denies). Either way, that Flynn changed his position for money, or again did not realize a foreign interest was seeking to use him remains problematic.
Such poor judgment on Flynn’s part does not excuse the political witch hunt the FBI apparently conducted against him. Those responsible within the FBI to involve the FBI nakedly in politics themselves deserve to face justice. But Flynn’s potential absolution — Judge Emmet Sullivan has yet to rule on the issue — does not absolve the retired general and former national security adviser of a repeated pattern of poor judgment between his 2014 retirement from the military and his brief tenure as Trump’s national security adviser.
Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.
