Michael Flynn envisioned ‘a Myanmar-style military coup’ for the US — and he hasn’t given up: report

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is among the far-right MAGA Republicans who tried to help former President Donald Trump carry out a coup d’état and overturn the 2020 election results. Flynn envisioned the U.S. military playing a prominent role in the coup, and according to New York Times reporter Robert Draper, he is still promoting the Big Lie a year into Joe Biden’s presidency.

Flynn, in fact, wanted Trump to declare martial law during the post-election lame duck period of late 2020/early 2021 — a terrifying thought in light of how bloody the military coup in Myanmar has been.

“While (attorney Sidney) Powell was pursuing legal options for reversing the election results,” Draper explains in an article published by the Times on February 4, “Flynn was beginning to envision a military role. ‘It’s not unprecedented,’ Flynn, describing the nascent plan, insisted to the Newsmax host Greg Kelly on December 17, (2020). ‘I mean, these people out there talking about martial law, like it’s something that we’ve never done. Martial law has been instituted 64 times, Greg,’ he said, then added, ‘I’m not calling for that.’”

Draper continues, “But by that point, Flynn was, in fact, calling for sending in the military to the contested states.”

The Times reporter adds that Patrick Byrne, former CEO of the e-commerce site Overstock.com and a right-wing activist, “told me that by December 16, he had lined up a series of options for the president to consider, including using uniformed officials to confiscate voting machines and ballots in six states. Flynn suggested to Byrne that the National Guard and U.S. marshals in combination would be the most suited to the job.”

In the weeks that followed, Draper notes, Flynn “continued to agitate for military intervention.”

Now, in 2022, Flynn continues to promote the false and totally debunked claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and that Biden wasn’t legitimately elected. In MAGA World, Draper writes, “Flynn is probably the single greatest draw besides Trump himself.”

Draper observes, “Flynn possesses unique credibility among the ex-president’s followers, with his own compelling storyline: that of a distinguished intelligence official who, he claims, experienced first-hand the nefariousness of the Deep State…. In the year since Flynn sought to enlist the military in overturning the election, he has continued to fight the same battle by other means. He has been a key figure in spreading the gospel of the stolen election.”

According to Amnesty International, almost 1500 people have been killed in Myanmar since the military coup — a coup that Flynn has described as something the U.S. should emulate.

Draper notes, “Flynn’s suggestion at a conference last May that a Myanmar-style military coup ‘should happen’ in the United States led Rep. Elaine Luria, a moderate Democrat from Virginia and former Navy commander, to argue that Flynn should be tried for sedition under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”