Right-wing myth-making of Michael Flynn

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Trump Derangement Syndrome, or TDS, the phenomena of the president making liberals lose their marbles over rage, cuts both ways, it seems. The latest victims of TDS on the Right have begun to transform Michael Flynn, a three-star lieutenant general, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and national security adviser, into a victim of the legal system, framed and hoodwinked by the FBI.

It still remains unclear how much Flynn is actually guilty of. That Flynn’s behavior was bad doesn’t make the FBI’s less so. As my Washington Examiner colleague Quin Hillyer detailed, the FBI was unethical in laying out a perjury trap if they didn’t have a real crime to investigate.

But Flynn is a liar, one clearly smart enough to think that he could game the legal system, but not strategic enough to get away with it.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s office had a field day in responding to Flynn’s claims that the FBI duped him into lying. In a Friday filing responding to Flynn’s argument and request for no jail time, Mueller pointed out that Flynn decided to lie about his communications with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak a whopping two weeks before his FBI interview.

“The [Washington] Post story asked whether [Flynn] had undercut sanctions and whether his acts violated the Logan Act,” Mueller’s filing states. “[Flynn] asked a subordinate member of the Presidential Transition Team to contact the Post on the morning of January 13 and convey false informations about [Flynn’s] communications with the Russian ambassador.”

He continued to lie about his communications with Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence and White House chief-of-staff-to-be Reince Priebus, and then finally to the FBI two weeks later.

“When faced with the FBI’s question on January 24, during an interview that was voluntary and cordial, the defendant repeated the same false statements,” wrote Mueller. “The Court should reject the defendant’s attempt to minimize the seriousness of those false statements to the FBI.”

To be clear, this says nothing about Trump’s involvement or whether or not Trump directed Flynn to engage with the Russian government, nor is it an indictment of any collusion charges. But Flynn chose to lie to federal investigators, intentionally and deliberately.

That Flynn was one of the premier intelligence operatives in the country seems to have temporarily slipped from the minds of his most blind and ardent defenders.

The Trump cheerleaders at American Greatness call the case against Flynn a “set-up,” referring to lying to federal investigators, as the Mueller filing demonstrates, a premeditated decision, as “walk[ing] back his initial denial.”

Kurt Schlichter calls it a “disgraceful persecution,” as though Flynn wasn’t actually guilty of intentionally lying to the FBI.

Gateway Pundit ran with the conspiracy that Flynn was framed, claiming that not only was he the victim of a perjury trap, but that federal investigators made up his lies in the first place. Sean Davis suggested the same, insinuating that since Mueller did not release the FBI interview with Flynn that they simply fabricated it.

It’s one thing to critique the FBI’s behavior and disproportionate targeting of Trump’s associates when compared to other equally corrupt politicians. But to reinvent the character of Mike Flynn as so despondent and unfamiliar with the law but also so awesome that Trump chose him as national security adviser is pure mythmaking and a pathetic attempt to boot.

CORRECTION: This piece originally mischaracterized Flynn’s job. He is a national security adviser. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.

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