Michael Flynn says that one day he will tell the unabridged story of American heroes who kept him alive and filled with hope when “the deep state buried me six feet under the ground.”
President Trump’s former national security adviser told Epoch Times Senior Editor Jan Jekielek that his legal battles with the federal government felt like a dire scuba diving situation or breathing through a tiny straw after being buried alive.
“The American people saved me,” the former general said just weeks removed from a presidential pardon. “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.”
Mr. Flynn originally pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about Russian contacts during special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, although he recanted after changing legal representation.
The Justice Department ultimately asked a federal judge to dismiss the charges against the decorated veteran, although decisions by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan kept him in legal limbo regarding a perjury charge.
“Have you ever gone scuba diving?” Mr. Flynn asked Monday. “Have you ever done buddy breathing? 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. Somehow, somebody stuck a straw up through that, or 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.”
Mr. Flynn’s supporters have said for years that he was essentially set up by partisan bureaucrats who feared the influence he would wield within Mr. Trump’s incoming administration.
Those claims were given credence in Justice Department court filings, which said he was only interviewed inside the White House after an FBI investigation uncovered no wrongdoing on his part.
“I’ll tell [my] story one day 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 — they believed in me,” Mr. Flynn continued. “They believed in my family. They believed in something that was bigger than what it is that we are about, and I thank God they did. So, like I say, I’ve been buddy breathing for four years down under and the American people gave me that oxygen to survive, to get through this.”
“The deep state buried me six feet under the ground, wanted me to die.”
— @JanJekielek’s American Thought Leaders 🇺🇸 (@AmThoughtLeader) December 15, 2020
“The American people [gave] me that oxygen to survive, to get through this.”
🚨EXCLUSIVE interview with @GenFlynn, the first of two parts! With @JanJekielek
🔴PREMIERE 9pm ET: https://t.co/Xmnur2iFI9 pic.twitter.com/M1SG2z58MF
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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