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Dec. 15, 2020 - Epoch Times
40:02
Exclusive: Gen. Flynn on the Last 4 Years: ‘The American People Saved Me’ | Pt 1 | American Thought Leaders
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The American people saved me.
They saved my family and I. And if there's something I'll get emotional about, it's that.
In this exclusive interview, the first of two parts, we hear from Lieutenant General Michael Flynn about his experience of the last four years, when the, quote, deep state buried me six feet under the ground, as he describes it.
We discuss what attracted him to then-candidate Donald Trump, why he believes he was targeted, and his thoughts on America's current political moment.
This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek.
General Michael Flynn, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
Thanks for having me on.
It's great to see you, great to finally meet you in person, and I really appreciate all that you're doing for the voices of America that have been silenced for so many years.
You're bringing those voices out, so thanks for all that Epoch Times is doing for this country.
Well, it's incredibly appreciated.
I mean it.
I mean it.
I mean it sincerely.
And there are organizations out there in the media that are, I've said this before, they're doing a disservice to not only your profession, to journalism, but they're doing a disservice to really the entire idea of freedom of speech.
So in this censorship that's going on in various social media, and frankly the fake news that exists, I really applaud Epoch Times for really being courageous in the world of the media today, because in the past, and certainly with some of these other large media organizations, they're crushing America's voices.
If I dare say it, I think we were one of the few that actually covered your story pretty well.
I guess this is one of the reasons we're sitting here today.
Before we get into talking a bit more about media and the current state of things, because I know you have plenty of thoughts about that, I wanted to go back into the past a little bit.
A lot of our audience are interested in your story and what happened.
There's some kind of critical moments that I've been wondering about specifically.
There's some time in the past where, of course, the FBI became interested in you.
They came to do that, the famous or infamous meeting at the White House where they interviewed you.
When did you realize at some point that everything wasn't up and up with what the FBI was doing?
I think, you know, years before all that, when you began to see the upper tier of the FBI act with arrogance in their attitude to other institutions in the government, their sort of abrasiveness, cultural abrasiveness, and it permeated from the top.
So if you Understand organizations and large organizations, whatever the culture is that's set at the top, that will permeate all the way down through the wider organization.
In the case of the FBI, it's a very large organization.
They're all over the United States, and I think they're in like 83, maybe 90 countries around the world.
And I use that word kindly, I think.
I could probably use stronger words, but there's a cultural abrasiveness and arrogance that existed at the top.
And I ran into that in my military career, and then I think slightly after that, And I always knew that there was a few people there, what we've learned to be really seriously,
not just sour apples, but bad, bad apples, that had it out for me for different reasons in the FBI. And then, of course, as I transitioned into sort of the political life and helping out Frankly, any candidate that was running against Hillary Clinton, but teaming up with Donald Trump.
Then you began to see this larger effort that was not only the FBI, but probably, and what we've learned, is elements within the Department of Justice and definitely elements within the national intelligence community.
Specifically, within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency.
So all of those things, and those things are people that are at the upper tier, upper crest of our country, and they don't operate independently.
They don't operate without direction.
They don't operate without coordination.
And what we have learned from my case, certainly, is it went all the way to the top.
So it went all the way to the Obama administration, to the very famous meeting In the Oval Office with President Obama and Vice President Biden at the time and others that were in there.
Maybe you highlight those who were in that meeting because there was others in that meeting.
So all that story goes back probably a year, at least a year.
My head right now is sort of in the early January 2017 era or time frame.
So that goes back to certainly the early January 2016 time frame and actually permeated all the way back probably another year or two.
One of the things that hasn't really been talked about too much, although what were some of the things that I took on was the Iranian nuclear deal.
I was asked, as a subject matter expert, To testify to the House and a committee within the House of Representatives, and I went in and testified about what was going on with the Iranian nuclear deal.
And I think the testimony was, if I remember, it was June of 2015.
So then they signed the deal in the July timeframe.
And then we learned about all these billions and billions of dollars that were shipped over there in the dark of night.
Well, if you go back and look at my testimony, just look at the opening statement.
And so there's sort of like when they put Mike Flynn up on the chalkboard and they start writing down all the things that they don't like about him, you know, that's probably check number one because that was the single foreign policy initiative, you know, disastrous initiative that the Obama administration took on with the number one state sponsor of terrorism, a country that was killing our men and women in uniform in Afghanistan and Iraq, principally Iraq, and elsewhere around the world.
So that was sort of check one.
And then there was other elements that then, I believe, began to really hone in on me.
And I think the spying on me went way, way past just the campaign.
So if that was check one, what were the other checks?
The other checks are in uniform in these open hearings.
Every year we do an annual threat assessment to the Senate Intelligence Committee open.
It's an open public hearing.
And there's a very famous picture.
I think it's me.
Clapper, Brennan, Comey, and I think, I forget the gentleman's name, but at the time he was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, you know, and so we're all lined up there, you know, it's all the senators, right?
And, you know, all the cameras, all the stuff that's there, because it's open and it's an annual threat assessment.
And it was, I believe it was 2014.
And they kind of went down the line.
I don't know whether it was Ted Cruz that was asking it or one of the senators, you know, asked the same question.
What do you think about ISIS? What do you think about ISIS? What do you think about ISIS? To everyone.
And I was at the end.
And all those guys basically said, they're defeated, they're on the run, we really have them down on their knees.
And they got to me and I said, it's expanding and it's getting worse.
Essentially.
And I said that because that's what I believed and that's what I saw at that time as the senior military intelligence officer in the Department of Defense and the head of one of the largest intelligence agencies in the world, the Defense Intelligence Agency.
And I had spent nearly five years in combat fighting these guys, and I knew how they operated and what they were up to.
Well, I don't think.
I know the Obama administration, they wanted to appear as though we were winning the war against ISIS or winning the war against radical Islamist terrorism, and we actually weren't.
Every little snippet, everything that we did, it actually caused an expansion of it.
And I think at the time, if I remember, if I have my numbers right, I'd be a little bit off, but it's public.
The information is public.
I think ISIS at the time or elements of Al-Qaeda were in like 45 countries.
So that's like, wait a second, you know, and here these guys are, the national intelligence leadership, all saying they're on the run, nothing to see here, you know, let's move on.
And they asked me and I told them what I believed at the time was certainly my belief and what the military intelligence system was saying from the field and my own experiences.
And it was right.
It was right.
It's interesting.
This is potentially the cost of having a dissenting view.
We're seeing a lot of that these days.
A dissenting view in a free system, in a democracy, in our constitutional republic, It should be cherished.
And you don't have to agree with it, right?
You don't have to agree with it, and you can get a whole bunch of other views, right?
You're going to get views that, you know, from other, you know, maybe 180 degrees.
But it should be cherished when, in fact, in our current institutions at that time.
So I know that Because I'll describe, I think, President Trump and how he operates from my time with him.
But under the Obama administration, you towed the line.
You towed the line.
And if you were dissenting, and as a three-star or a four-star, you're a political appointee, really.
The last promotion you get is to two-star in the military.
Most people don't even understand that.
Everything after that is a political appointment.
So Barack Obama had to appoint me.
Which he did twice for two different jobs.
And then I had to get Senate confirmed for those two positions.
Assistant Director of National Intelligence and then the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
So, you know, I mean, you put me in the job.
Did you put me in the job because you think I was going to, you know, kiss up to you?
That's not my style.
Not my style.
So the seriousness of not seeking an opposing view And I'll tie it into what we're experiencing today.
So we have a United States Intelligence Community Assessment, ICA, Intelligence Community Assessment, that is going to be presented by the Director of National Intelligence this coming Friday, the 18th of December.
John Ratcliffe, who I think is a terrific guy, methodical, thoughtful, and a decent person, if I had him in front of me, and I would tell him that if he has not requested an outside independent assessment from potentially people with a different I'd
be very interested in knowing if John Radcliffe will give not only the intelligence, the U.S. intelligence community's assessment, but an outside independent review of foreign influence in this current presidential election that we just went through.
So that's where I got caught up because they didn't want it.
So I had, you know, the better part of 20,000 people plus a bunch of soldiers and airmen, marines, navy personnel, intelligence community, military intelligence community, people all over the world.
You know, in all these different countries.
You know, I said, whatever, 45 countries.
It's probably more than that.
Probably more than that.
And...
And that was a thorough examination of both what we knew factually, our experiences, our judgments, and our analyses to come up with that soundbite, basically, of, you know, to me, what do you think there, General Flynn?
And I'll tell you what, that probably started the conversation, I'm sure, in the Oval Office to say, get rid of that guy.
You know, we can't have him.
Can't have him.
Because we're trying to take over this country.
Remember, Barack Obama said he wanted to fundamentally change America.
So I would ask you and your audience, what do you think that meant?
You initially supported President Trump because you wanted to support the person who would win against Hillary.
Did I understand that correctly?
Well, I think that I liked Donald Trump when I first met him.
It was supposed to be a short one-on-one kind of meeting, and I forget the exact reason why his guys had reached out to me, but I went down to meet him in New York, met him.
And I liked him.
I liked him a lot because it's like what you see is what you get.
No BS. Tough guy.
He actually, when he's, if you're in the room with him and there's others around and he's got a decision, even if it's the secretary or the guy that's going to be cooking some hamburgers, if you're in that room and there's something going on, he's going to go, what do you think about all this?
What do you think about all this?
What do you think about all this?
I like people like that because he wants to hear from everybody.
He'll make the decision, but he wants to hear the views from everybody.
So I got involved with him in really the summer of 2015.
I think it was August.
And I'll tell you this one little story about him because it was very impressive for me.
It was a little bit later on, but I think it was the first time that I had traveled with him to one of these big campaign stops.
It was a total downpour in New York.
We're leaving the Trump Tower.
We'd all met.
I mean, it was just buckets, you know, cats and dogs, right?
Ran in cats and dogs.
And we pulled up a couple of these, you know, black SUVs or whatever.
Everybody else, you know, I'm sitting in the vehicle with him right next to him.
Everybody else you could see scurrying off to run up into the plane so they didn't get their hair wet or whatever.
And there was two guys that were like tarmac guys who were working on the airfield, and they were going to pull the chocks off of the airplane while they're preparing to take off, right?
And they're just soaking wet.
And it was cold, too.
And Trump got out of that car...
And everybody talks about his hair.
He walked out of that car downpour and he walked over to those two guys.
And I was around the corner because I'm like, rain, you're not going to melt, right?
So I'm standing there watching this.
And he walks over to these two guys and has a conversation with them for...
You know, a better part of probably 15, 20 seconds.
You know, he probably said, hey, thanks for what you're doing.
And I saw him pull out a roll of bills, and he gave each one of them something.
You know, maybe he gave them a 20, maybe he gave them a 100.
I don't know what he gave them, but I saw him hand those guys like a tip.
You know, in the downpour and he could have just walked out of his car and walked upstairs and gotten in and they would have held an umbrella out for him, right?
And he didn't do that.
And I tell you that story because there's a human side of Donald Trump that it gets out once in a while and there's all kinds of crazy stories about him.
But when I saw that, I saw a guy that I respected at that moment because to me, Those guys were his employees, or they were employees of that airfield.
But he took a minute to say thank you and slip them 20 bucks a piece or whatever, and I found that to be an extraordinary compliment to them.
And really a sign of respect for just the working man.
And I think that that's what's in Donald Trump's heart.
That's what I saw.
And among other examples that I always look for, I look for those kinds of things because I was raised, you know, yes ma'am, no ma'am, yes sir, no sir, thank you.
That kind of a world.
And a family that would respect others.
So I was looking to see if he had that.
And that was one of those moments in time.
And here I am telling you about it.
And I could be saying all kinds of nasty things about Donald Trump.
Really.
I mean, if I wanted to, I could be the most vindictive person against him for having experienced what I just have experienced, but I don't because it wasn't his...
I don't blame him.
He wasn't responsible for something that he didn't know was going on.
And now, I mean, I felt that I knew, and now we all know, Now we all know.
And it's a very dangerous thing for this experiment in democracy that we are sort of still working our way through, and we're in another moment in history that was identified by the original founders of our country.
What we're experiencing right now, They had the incredible vision through the Adamses, the Jeffersons, the Locks, you know, the people that were part of creating this great document that has withstood a lot of tests.
And we're in the middle of another one of these big tests.
And I'm confident that we'll get through it, but not without a lot more sacrifice.
This is kind of a fascinating situation.
On one hand, it's really interesting how one small act really can define a person in one's mind.
That's quite interesting, what you just described.
Another point is you seem to have come out of one giant tribulation and you just walked right into the middle of another one.
Does that make sense to everybody to do something like that?
Yeah, you mean should I just go find a little beach hut somewhere and go away?
The American people saved me.
They saved my family and I. If there's something I'll get emotional about, it's that.
I mean, I don't know why.
Prayer, right?
faith and you know have you ever gone scuba diving I have.
I have.
You ever done buddy breathing?
I have.
Well, the American people have been buddy breathing with me for four years.
Another way to describe it was the deep state buried me six feet under the ground, wanted me to die, and somehow somebody stuck a straw up through that A straw was allowed to be stuck up to the air and I sat and I laid down there for four years breathing through that straw.
But that straw became wider and wider and wider over the years because the American people came to my family's aid.
And I'll tell that story someday because that's an amazing story about people that have nothing And they're willing to give me everything that they have because they believed in something that, you know, they believed in me, they believed in my family, they believed in something that was bigger than what it is that we are about, and thank God they did.
So I was like, like I say, I've been buddy breathing for four years down under, and the American people were who was giving me that oxygen.
To do that, to survive, to get through this.
And so I feel like I have a responsibility now.
It's hard to understand, but I just feel like I have a responsibility to them and I'm not going to let them down and I have children,
I have grandchildren and if I can see the future Through the eyes of my mother, who's deceased now, who lived for 90 years, and she's had a terrific life, and she's a terrific woman, and just an unbelievable life that she had and gave us.
And as I look forward through my, let's just say, my granddaughter's eyes, I can see at least 90 years.
And so, when I think about this next century that we're already two decades into, and it's been a century of war so far, right?
I mean, 2001, right?
9-11.
And I know enough about world history and American history, so what are the likely things that we are going to experience in the next 90 years, or the next 80 years, let's say.
Because if my granddaughter lives to the age of my mother, she'll be alive at the turn of the next century.
So what kind of a world do I want to give her?
Right?
And I have a responsibility.
To do that.
So if I'm given a platform, which I think the American public have done that for me.
I'm out here fighting because I do not want this country to go the way of the wolf, so to speak.
I don't want that to happen.
I always talk about when somebody says, Boy, that thing is Byzantine, like that tie you've got on.
It's a Byzantine tie.
It means an old tie.
I'm just joking with you about your tie, but something that's Byzantine, what does that mean to you?
It means what you said.
It's old, right?
It means it's old.
It's Byzantine, right?
What was Byzantine?
What was it?
It was an empire.
It's one of the oldest empires that ever existed.
Have you ever met a Spartan?
Have you ever met an Athenian?
Maybe you've met a Roman because somebody's from Rome, right?
But You follow me?
I mean, it's like there's these empires that have risen and fallen, nation states that have existed in the history of the world, and they don't exist anymore.
And because everybody's working towards this perfect system, whatever the ideology is, and the ideologies that we have on the sort of planet today are, you know, it's communism, you know, still a little bit of imperialism, Right?
So there's these, Islamism is another one.
So there's these isms, I guess.
We defeated Nazism in the last century, thank God.
Otherwise, we'd be, you know, I think that your background, I think I've heard a little bit about your life story.
But we'd all be kneeling at the altar of Adolf Hitler if it wasn't for, frankly, for the United States of America, but sort of the world that recognized we didn't want that ism.
Right?
So, we are now in an era of Americanism, if you will, and we have to accept, those of us that at least understand it, because I think a lot of people don't, and that's fine, that this country won't last forever.
And so what do we do while we're on this earth, while we're in this country, to help move it along, right?
To keep it alive, to keep...
You know, to kind of push fresh air back into it every so often and renew it, right?
I mean, a lot of our great leaders over the history of our country have talked about, you know, sometimes it gets renewed by other reasons or other things, right?
I mean, it can get renewed by war.
And there's some great, you know, some great quotes out there from some, I think, our founders, but certainly other historic leaders in our time, in our country.
So those are things that, you know, it's a little bit of philosophy, I guess, but it's real.
It's real.
And so what will, if we have threats or adversaries or competitors, which we do on the world stage in Russia, China, parts of Europe,
And other aspects of the world, if we have these adversaries or competitors or threats, they're not sitting still and going, yeah, I think I'll just sit around and I'll just wait and watch and do nothing.
We'll just allow the...
Because they don't like our system.
We have competing systems and certainly with communism.
So they see their system being better than ours.
And there's competition.
And we have a moral fabric in our country that's being ripped apart.
It's being ripped apart through the breakdown of the family.
It's being ripped apart through the massive cultural shift in our academic institutions from elementary school all the way up through high school and definitely undergraduate and graduate programs, which are still really pretty good, but the shift in the last certainly 20 years has just been extraordinary.
In terms of attitudes about America.
I mean, you guys have seen it.
You've reported on a lot of this stuff.
It's been terrific reporting.
Other nations around the world look at us and say that's a moral society.
It's a moral society because they take care of people in a way that...
And they allow all of these sort of what is in our DNA, which is this desire for freedom, And then we have this in us, in our culture, and in the fabric, again, of our American society.
That is being usurped.
It's being attacked.
And it's being attacked through education and, as I said, the breakdown of the family and other components.
Certainly the expansion of our institutions in our government.
And I'll give you one example, rough numbers.
So I took over one of the largest intel agencies in the world and a large agency within the Department of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency.
At the time we had about, when I took it over in 2012, It was roughly about 17,000-plus employees and then a couple of thousand contractors, but let's just say 20,000.
Well, the day before 9-11, the 10th, 9-10, 2001, right?
That institution was about roughly 3,000 to 3,500 people.
So that's a multiplication of whatever, six, seven, in 10, 11 years, in a decade.
That's one agency in the government.
So there's this incredible growth of the federal government.
And what that growth does, what the bureaucracy does, is it chokes itself to death.
And when I say it chokes itself to death, it chokes the country to death.
As we're experiencing all this COVID stuff, where if it's 99.99% recovery rate, I mean, Then why are we responding by shutting down the lifeblood of the United States of America, therefore the world?
Which is what we're doing.
I mean, we're in Washington, D.C. right now.
All you can do is go walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and you can see the plywood on beautiful restaurants and stores that used to be thriving in an area that's one of the wealthiest areas in the country, which is another...
Which is another issue that the American public would believe, but are probably upset about.
Why is this area among the wealthiest counties in the country while the rest of America is suffering?
Did any government employees lose their paychecks when they were told, now you've got to stay at home because of COVID? You're going to do online work from home.
You know how many salon workers, how many restaurant workers, they lost their paychecks because they weren't getting money from the government, right?
And so the government had to respond by, I think the initial checks were $3 trillion, and then they dispersed checks.
But, you know, while government employees continue to get paid, now they can say, well, they're critical, they're mission essential.
Anyway, I'm a little bit on a tangent, but We have a moral fabric in this country that we cannot lose sight of.
We can reflect on history and look at periods of time and find indicators of decline.
Let's just assume that we are, that we're not waxing, we're waning, then what do we do about it?
Do we continue to attack a president who is trying to, who frankly could go do many other things, But he's given up a great life because he loves the country.
And so what we're doing is we're attacking him and just breaking him down.
Why?
I mean, is it because we want America to break down as well?
And I think the answer to that is yes.
I think that there are people in this country And definitely competitors, adversaries, and threats that would love to see that.
And all you've got to do is just study a little bit of Chinese history, and you know what their sort of 100-year plan is.
So all the Chinese leaders that I'm certain will watch this, they'll say, he's right.
But we've still got him.
I hope I'm wrong.
But this recent madness with this hypocrite congressman, whose name I won't say, who was caught up with a liaison with a Chinese spy,
So if you scratch the window pane, because there's a little bit of ice on it, you scratch it, and the warmth of your finger starts to...
that circle grows and grows and grows.
How many more people are in that position?
How many more people are in that position?
How many more members of Congress?
How many people in government and other institutions?
How many people in academia?
I mean, we know about the Harvard, the head of whatever, the bio program at Harvard whenever it was, a year ago, right?
So you can show his picture because that's real.
That is real.
So these aren't, you know, this isn't makeup.
You know, the media is going to talk about, you know, conspiracy nuts and all these things.
This is real.
My life is, for whatever reason, this is what I've chosen to do.
And I can live with myself.
I can live with myself.
I can live with my mistakes.
I can live with my imperfections.
You know, I can live with myself.
And I'm fine with it.
I'm fine with it.
And part of it is because I think I understand.
I think I see what's happening.
And I have an amazing family.
And I have a real core of what I call true friends, because in the stuff that you go through, especially these last four years, I mean, talk about cutting away friends and friendships.
I mean, it's amazing.
It really is amazing.
Now, in Trump, there's a video of him where I forget, it was Charlie, whatever his name, Charlie Rose did the interview, and he talked about if you lost everything, and Trump says, you know, I'd like to lose everything, because really then I'd learn who my true friends were.
And I've learned what true friends are, not just who, because many people I've never met.
And they've come to my family as friends.
And that's a real, you know, that's a real positive.
So I, in a collective sense of my family and I, we've turned that into a big, big positive for us.
And so, to finish, as I described about, you know, my life has been buddy breathing for the last four years, so now I'm back to the surface.
Okay?
And I'm a good swimmer.
I think you were talking about the head of nanotechnology at Harvard earlier.
There's so many things I want to talk to you about.
I think we'll have to make this a part one then.
And this whole idea, frankly, that there's probably people out there that are willing to accept a decline of America, within America, and of course outside we know there are plenty.
And it's not a decline, Jan.
It's not a decline.
And it's not subtle.
It is a shift in In the direction of our country.
It is a fundamental change in America.
It's a fundamental shift.
That's what some want to do.
And because there is an awful lot that the richness of America can provide to people who would otherwise not have the best interest in mind.
They have the interest of other things.
And I'll say one other thing, because you just reminded me, and this is in the United Kingdom, So what they're finding, and it's an article, it's breaking news though, and I look at it knowing what I know, and it talks about Chinese operatives essentially working in British embassies and consulates, because they get British citizenship, they get hired.
I mean, the world of spying It's not fun and games.
It's real.
It exists.
And frankly, the other side, and there's sort of a lot of other side, right?
They don't care if they get caught.
They don't care.
And their moral fabric is different than our moral fabric.
And how they operate, how they think.
And it's, like I said, the other side is, it's like you're looking at a lineup of nations.
and in some cases non-nation state actors too.
Well, and Will, the database that you're describing that this reporting out of the UK is about, we've started looking at this database.
There's descriptions not just in places like consulates and embassies, but also in corporations, Chinese Communist Party cells being developed in these places, certainly academics.
We'll absolutely be looking into that.
General Flynn, I really look forward to the part two where we'll have to kind of deep dive into some of the many incredible things you brought up today.
Great.
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