“Time TV”
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Donald Trump’s former nationwide safety adviser Michael Flynn has spent a lot of the final three years claiming the 2020 election was stolen, turning baseless conspiracy theories right into a cottage trade centered round stay occasions, a documentary and political fundraising by darkish cash teams.
However below oath in a court docket deposition earlier this yr, Flynn for the primary time on document acknowledged there was no proof to assist a key a part of some election fraud claims — that an govt at Dominion Voting Techniques helped rig the 2020 election by the corporate’s voting machines.
Flynn was deposed in a yearslong defamation lawsuit that former Dominion govt Eric Coomer introduced in opposition to ReAwaken America, the talking tour Flynn co-founded in 2021 that travels the nation selling election denialism and different right-wing conspiracy theories.
“Have you ever seen any proof that you’d contemplate credible, Mr. Flynn, that Eric Coomer performed a job in rigging the 2020 presidential election?” Attorneys for Coomer requested Flynn at one level within the April deposition.
“I’ve not, no,” Flynn responded. “I don’t actually know.” When pressed concerning the extra common claims about Dominion-related election fraud, Flynn added that he’s “seen numerous proof” and “learn numerous experiences,” however couldn’t say for sure that he believed that proof to be credible: “Credibility is within the eye of the authorized system to find out.”
A month later, Flynn was again on TV, telling Chris Cuomo on NewsNation that the 2020 election was “full of fraud” and that there’s “clear proof” to again it up. Pressed for particulars, Flynn declined to elaborate.
Final month, Flynn was on Alex Jones’ InfoWars speaking a couple of Marxist plot to steal the election from Trump. At a latest Christian nationalist pageant in Pennsylvania held by Rod of Iron Ministries, Flynn spoke about unleashing vengeance if Trump wins.
“There’s a method to get after this, however we’ve to win first,” stated Flynn. “These persons are already as much as no good, so we gotta win first. We win, after which Katy, bar the door. Imagine me, the gates of hell, my hell can be unleashed.”
Flynn – a retired Military lieutenant common who as soon as led the Protection Intelligence Company, and somebody Trump has indicated he would come with in a second administration – has been one of many greatest promoters of the identical baseless voter fraud allegations which have spawned prison investigations, a congressional inquiry and, within the case of Dominion, a $787 million defamation settlement from Fox Information.
But Flynn has to this point skirted any authorized jeopardy himself, sustaining a novel place inside the MAGA motion because of his relentless promotion of baseless election lies, and his continued loyalty to Trump.
As hundreds of thousands of voters start making their selection for president, the lies of the final election nonetheless permeate the airwaves. The fallout is actual for what was mundane parts of America’s elections system. There was an exodus of election staff who’ve stop or retired as an alternative of placing up with the abuse for an additional cycle. Elections workplaces are shopping for wearable panic buttons for staff anxious about violence who desire a method to rapidly alert the police.
Trump and his allies have gone from claiming the 2020 election was rigged to casting doubt on the integrity of this one. At its coronary heart is a casual confederation of Trump allies who’ve spent the previous 4 years spreading the lie of voter fraud. Not solely have they managed to persuade giant swaths of the nation that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, they’ve made a enterprise out of it.
Nobody has cashed in fairly like Flynn. Together with the ReAwaken America Tour, Flynn additionally co-founded The America Undertaking, a nonprofit group which has raised at least $21 million from unknown donors since 2021, in keeping with tax filings, whereas peddling baseless claims concerning the 2020 election.
A few of that cash has helped bankroll doubtful makes an attempt to undermine public religion within the safety of voting techniques, pay a wage to Flynn’s brother Joseph, enhance the political campaigns of recognized election deniers, and underwrite numerous authorized efforts to overturn the reputable 2020 election outcomes.
“What Mike Flynn has accomplished is that he’s turned his as soon as revered army profession into harmful grift, profiting off of conspiracy theories, undermining the very democracy that he as soon as swore to guard,” stated Olivia Troye, a former nationwide safety official who labored below then-Vice President Mike Pence. Troye has recognized Flynn for years, courting again to his time as a high-ranking army official serving in Afghanistan.
“The priority about individuals like Mike Flynn is that he was as soon as a really well-respected army officer,” Troye, who’s supporting Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, informed “Time TV”. “The difficulty is that he, somebody like that, is totally able to radicalizing others within the army, and others, like our former army, as a result of he brings that stature.”
Coomer’s collection of civil defamation lawsuits, aimed toward a number of the organizations and folks which have propagated the declare that Dominion rigged the election, have put into the general public document new particulars about how Flynn used his place in Trump’s inside circle and his contacts within the nationwide safety group to attempt to weaponize the federal authorities in opposition to Dominion — and persuade hundreds of thousands of voters that the fraud was actual.
Chief amongst them is a November 2020 e-mail chain that Flynn forwarded to a member of Trump’s Nationwide Safety Council. The e-mail, which Flynn didn’t write, singles out Coomer, who was then Dominion’s director of product technique and safety, and requires his speedy arrest.
“Eric Coomer might maintain the important thing to the complete election theft by Dominion. Eric Coomer ought to be arrested instantly,” learn the e-mail that Flynn forwarded to Joshua Steinman, a former army officer and Trump’s high White Home adviser on cyber coverage.
The e-mail, which has not been beforehand reported, was cited in court docket filings as proof of how Flynn was among the many earliest promoters of 2020 vote-rigging lies, and immediately connects Flynn to efforts to make use of these false theories to persuade federal officers that the election ought to be overturned.
Flynn handed alongside the e-mail on the behest of Sidney Powell, the Trump lawyer who, together with Rudy Giuliani, introduced dozens of fruitless lawsuits alleging voter fraud after the election.
“Get to Josh asap,” Powell wrote to Flynn on November 14, 11 days after the 2020 election, sharing an e-mail she obtained from one other right-wing election denier about Coomer’s alleged function in a conspiracy to rig the election for Joe Biden.
It’s unclear how Steinman responded to Flynn’s e-mail. Steinman declined to remark for this story.
Coomer can also be suing the Trump marketing campaign, “My Pillow Man” CEO Michael Lindell, and ex-Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.
As prison prosecutions into the hassle to overturn the 2020 election have stalled out, Coomer’s civil swimsuit could also be what goes earlier than a jury first. His defamation case in opposition to Lindell is scheduled for a June 2025 trial.
Coomer shouldn’t be suing Flynn immediately. However he’s suing the ReAwaken America Tour and The America Undertaking as a part of separate defamation lawsuits. Although Flynn was integral to founding each, he has sought to distance himself from their day-to-day operations.
Troye likened Flynn’s fundraising equipment to an “offshore shell sport” that makes it tough to find out the place the funding is coming from and what that cash is used for.
“The place is the funding for these entities coming from as a result of as they type of masks their involvement, they usually’re grifting off of it, my query is, who’s the supply of the funding for lots of those entities?” she stated.
A lawyer for The America Undertaking declined to supply extra context across the non-profit’s spending, whereas calling the defamation lawsuit in opposition to it “vexatious.”
“Put merely, Mr. Coomer’s lawsuit is nothing greater than a thinly veiled try to make the most of the court docket system to threaten and intimidate TAP and different organizations prefer it from exercising their First Modification protected rights,” the lawyer, Christopher Demspey, informed “Time TV” in an e-mail.
“Time TV” requested Flynn how he aligns his statements below oath with the opposite statements he’s made about fraud within the 2020 election. His workforce didn’t reply these questions. As a substitute, Flynn’s lawyer supplied an announcement that targeted on the deserves of utilizing paper ballots.
Michael Flynn lasted lower than a month within the Trump administration. After it got here out that he lied to the FBI about conversations he had with the Russian ambassador, Flynn resigned as Trump’s Nationwide Safety Advisor on February 13, 2017. By December 2017, Flynn pleaded responsible to creating false statements to the FBI. Flynn later withdrew his responsible plea and the Justice Division, below then-Legal professional Basic William Barr, dropped the fees in opposition to him.
Over the subsequent three years, Flynn stayed in Trump’s good graces, and after the 2020 election, he discovered himself within the then-president’s inside circle. As Trump fought to remain in workplace, Flynn was concerned in plenty of aggressive techniques, together with a proposal he helped craft to have the army and Division of Homeland Safety confiscate voting machines.
In December 2020, a draft govt order started circulating amongst Trump’s inside circle. It name-checked Coomer and referenced a since debunked forensic report that alleged Dominion was “deliberately and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and affect election outcomes.”
The order directed the Secretary of Protection to “seize, gather, retain and analyze” voting machines across the nation.
Emails reviewed by “Time TV” present that Flynn oversaw the method to draft and edit the doc. Each he and Powell have been within the Oval Workplace on December 18, 2020, throughout a notoriously unhinged assembly wherein Trump was offered the draft order to grab voting machines. He by no means ended up signing it.
Requested about that assembly and the manager orders throughout his April deposition, Flynn invoked his Fifth Modification proper to not provide incriminating proof in opposition to himself. When Home investigators probing the January 6, 2021, US Capitol assault deposed Flynn in 2022, he pleaded the Fifth a whole lot of instances.
That’s what makes what Flynn stated within the Coomer deposition so beautiful, stated Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat and former member of the Home committee that investigated January 6.
“He’s primarily confessing that he thought-about all of {that a} helpful prop for selling an authoritarian political program and a takeover of our authorities,” Raskin informed “Time TV”.
Flynn’s efforts to forged doubt on the 2020 election outcomes have been solely getting began when Trump left workplace. In April 2021, Flynn fashioned a non-profit group referred to as The America Undertaking alongside along with his brother Joseph Flynn and Patrick Byrne, the rich former CEO of Overstock.com who has bankrolled quite a few efforts aimed toward discovering election fraud.
Byrne produced a 2021 documentary referred to as “The Deep Rig,” laying out sensational theories about 2020 election fraud – together with the bombastic claims about Coomer. Byrne and others concerned within the documentary stated the cash it raised would go to The America Undertaking.
Dempsey, the lawyer for The America Undertaking, stated the “movie constitutes the expression of Constitutionally protected speech concerning a matter of public concern.” He didn’t reply “Time TV”’s query about income from the movie going to the non-profit, however famous that “Dr. Coomer’s lawsuit doesn’t allege that TAP participated in making the movie, that it had any enter or authority over the movie’s content material, that it edited the movie, or that it made any assertion of its personal about Dr. Coomer concerning his involvement within the 2020 Presidential Election.”
Joseph Flynn was closely concerned in selling the movie and starred in it as effectively. In 2022, he earned a $263,077 wage from The America Undertaking, in keeping with tax filings. In 2021, The America Undertaking paid $200,000 to Resilient Patriot, an LLC registered below Michael Flynn’s identify, for “strategic consulting,” whereas an organization linked to Joseph Flynn was paid almost $159,000 for “election integrity investigations.”
Flynn and The America Undertaking have been additionally immediately concerned in serving to fund the partisan “audit” of Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory in Arizona that was carried out by a hand-picked group of outdoor investigators referred to as the Cyber Ninjas, in keeping with tax paperwork and textual content messages obtained by “Time TV”.
The America Undertaking funneled $2.75 million to the Cyber Ninjas all through 2021, in keeping with tax filings, in an effort to prop up what was finally uncovered to be a sham audit of Arizona’s vote tally. The audit really discovered extra votes for Biden than beforehand had been awarded to him.
Flynn personally helped facilitate these funds and warranted Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan on a number of events he might assist safe further funding from different pro-Trump teams – even when it turned clear to Logan that his findings solely reaffirmed the truth that Biden had gained Arizona, in keeping with textual content messages between the 2 males, which haven’t been beforehand reported.
Flynn’s goal, the texts present, was not solely to upend the 2020 presidential election however to essentially change the best way votes are counted on the state degree – a message that’s according to what Trump’s former nationwide safety adviser has continued to advertise publicly in latest weeks.
“They’re going to try to change voting ceaselessly now that they acquired away with stealing the 3nov election,” Flynn wrote to Logan on March 6, 2021, a view he repeated all through almost six months of textual content messages to Logan and reiterated on InfoWars on September 29.
“States actually should step up in opposition to the imposition of the federal authorities. States have rights too. The Dem managed states gained’t. The weak republicans gained’t both (Georgia involves thoughts!” Flynn added, in keeping with textual content messages between the 2 males that have been obtained by “Time TV”.
“And residents should cease this by telling their elected officers it isn’t acceptable,” Flynn wrote to Logan.
Within the weeks after Biden’s inauguration, Flynn crossed paths with Clay Clark, a former marriage ceremony DJ in Oklahoma who spun out numerous companies from his work within the bridal trade, together with a radio present targeted on entrepreneurship.
After assembly by Flynn’s look at a Tulsa political occasion in 2021, Clark and Flynn hatched the stay occasion program that will change into the ReAwaken America Tour, a touring convention of outstanding far-right audio system who opine on causes just like the evil of Covid-related authorities mandates, the function Christian nationalism ought to be taking part in in society and election denialism.
Of the roughly two-dozen occasions the ReAwaken America Tour has hosted, Flynn has spoken on the overwhelming majority of them and is featured prominently on its promotional supplies. For a time, Flynn collected a $15,000 speaker’s charge for every look however, in keeping with his deposition, the tour bumped into monetary difficulties and people funds ended. Clark claims the tour is a money-loser for him.
Because the tour was getting up and operating in 2021 Flynn was additionally gathering 1000’s of {dollars} in talking charges for appearances at marketing campaign occasions and for conservative political organizations, in keeping with marketing campaign finance data.
Flynn tends to play an emcee function at ReAwaken America Tour occasions, often talking for 20 minutes or so teeing up the overall themes of the convention. Flynn typically makes indirect references to election fraud throughout his personal feedback, talking to an viewers that has already been primed to consider the 2020 election was stolen.
“Everyone noticed the 2020 election and all of the shenanigans that went on,” Flynn stated throughout a tour occasion in Manheim, Pennsylvania, in October 2022. “A number of it proper right here, numerous it proper right here on this state.”
“They prefer to name you election denier,” Flynn went on to say. “I don’t deny that elections occurred. I do deny that we’ve a good election system in our nation. We don’t. You may’t inform me that we do.”
Among the many common audio system on the ReAwaken America Tour was Joe Oltmann, a far-right activist and Colorado podcaster who was a supply of election rigging smears in opposition to Coomer.
Within the wake of the 2020 election, Oltmann claimed on his podcast that he had infiltrated an Antifa teleconference name, throughout which an “Eric” supposedly bragged about rigging the election for Biden. Oltmann pointed to anti-Trump posts on Coomer’s non-public Fb web page in asserting that the “Eric” he claims to have heard on the decision was the Dominion govt, Coomer.
The allegations have been picked up throughout Trump-world and have been repeated by Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani on the notorious November 19, 2020, press convention on the Republican Nationwide Committee headquarters.
Showing on stage at ReAwaken America Tour occasions in 2021 and 2022, Oltmann repeated his unfounded claims about Coomer’s election rigging scheme, in remarks that usually took aggressive and even violent undertones.
Oltmann, whom Coomer can also be suing for defamation, has by no means put ahead proof that will show his allegations. He has refused to sit down for testimony or produce subpoenaed paperwork, and even managed to flee a courthouse mid-way by a June deposition.
A choose lately hit Oltmann with a $1,000-a-day effective – with a risk of potential incarceration. The effective is on pause whereas he appeals that judgment.
Below oath within the deposition, Flynn stated he couldn’t recall the main points of Oltmann’s allegations about Coomer and claimed he wouldn’t acknowledge Oltmann if he walked into his workplace. Coomer’s attorneys have famous that elsewhere within the deposition Flynn stated that he tries to look at as many audio system as attainable when he attends tour occasions.
Clark has claimed that the litigation has price him between $2,000 and $3,000 a day in authorized charges, whereas Oltmann pleaded to his podcast listeners for contributions for his authorized fights.
Legal professionals for Clark and his companies declined to remark for this story.
Penalties have mounted for others who echoed Trump election lies throughout and after the election.
A number of of them, together with Flynn’s one-time lawyer Powell, have been charged criminally by state prosecutors probing election subversion. Powell – who sources say has had a falling out with Flynn, her former consumer, and seems to be conserving a decrease public profile of late – entered a responsible plea within the Fulton County, Georgia, prosecution, and quietly settled this summer season the defamation lawsuit Coomer introduced in opposition to her.
Ex-Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis pleaded responsible within the Georgia case and has apologized for her function in peddling election lies. Giuliani is topic to a $148 million defamation judgement – presently being appealed – for his smearing of two Georgia election staff and has additionally been disbarred in New York and DC.
In the meantime, Flynn has navigated round a lot of this fallout whereas positioning himself as an more and more outstanding voice on purported election fraud whereas the 2024 election will get underway.
Because the worldwide group prepares for a attainable second Trump time period, a number of overseas diplomats inform “Time TV” they see Flynn as somebody who could have affect if the previous president retakes the White Home and have privately speculated that he could possibly be tapped for an additional high-level place if that involves move.
Through the latest occasion hosted by the far-right group Rod of Iron Ministries, Flynn’s son informed the gang that his father would seemingly be part of forces with Elon Musk to move a authorities effectivity job power.
Flynn himself, in the meantime has began to publicly counsel he would assist Trump round-up political opponents ought to he win in 2024.
On the Rod of Iron Ministries occasion, an viewers member requested if Flynn could be reinstated along with his full rank to “sit on the head of a army tribunal to not solely drain the swamp, however imprison the swamp and on a number of events, execute the swamp” if Trump is elected.
“I positively consider we’d like accountability” Flynn stated. “, your query went into another areas that I believe numerous, lots of people really assume such as you do. And I believe that that’s, your proper, and your, and our privilege. … I imply, there’s a method to get after this, however we’ve to win first.”
Through the ReAwaken America Tour’s most up-to-date gathering, held final weekend in Selma, North Carolina, Flynn sang alongside to Twisted Sister’s Nineteen Eighties anthem “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” and earlier that weekend made remarks to the attendees stressing that this election was solely the start of their motion.
“Now, there’s all types of issues that you could go on the market and do. We’ve been speaking about voting all day. Sure, try this,” Flynn stated Friday. “However don’t simply end on Election Day. Take this concept of what this nation was designed to be and take it ahead in your lives for the remainder of your lives. Make each single day depend.”
