Voices on the right are referring to former national security adviser Mike Flynn’s ousting this week as a “political assassination.”
The phrase was first used by national security reporter Eli Lake at Bloomberg View on Tuesday. But some in the conservative media have picked up on it.
The Drudge Report linked to Lake’s column with the banner headline, “POLITICAL ASSASSINATION.”
Also on Tuesday, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh described it that way.
“So what we have here, we have a political assassination that’s taken place here,” he said. “The media’s gonna try as hard as they can not to let go of this, because now they’ve got their scalp. They think they have blood in the water, they’ve got a scalp, and they think they can get another and then another and then another and then another until finally they get Trump.”
Flynn resigned from his White House position late Monday night, following reports he misled the administration about his contact with Russia’s ambassador to the United States during the transition.
The White House on Tuesday said Flynn’s resignation was accepted because he had breached his “trust” with President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa on Wednesday said Flynn “has been subject to a political assassination, [regardless] of what he did or didn’t say to President Trump or Vice President Pence.”
