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<i>Water has always
been a big part of our--</i>

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<i>of our lives
in the Flynn family.</i>

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<i>We all grew up surfing,
we all grew up
around the ocean.</i>

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<i>If you don't
respect the ocean,</i>

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if you don't have a respect
for this, this, this thing,

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<i>which is alive,
the ocean is alive.</i>

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I went into the service
because I love our country.

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<i>He was one
of the most respected generals
in the military.</i>

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<i>And I come home,
and I find out</i>

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that the worst enemy
that I'm going to face
in my life

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<i>is right here in America.</i>

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<i>President Obama said,
"But I do have one specific
recommendation.</i>

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<i>Stay away from Michael Flynn.
He's bad news."</i>

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They're calling me a traitor.
They're saying
I committed treason.

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<i>They're saying
I'm a Russian spy.</i>

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<i>That Obama was involved
in the targeting of Flynn.</i>

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<i>He was,
by definition,</i>

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<i>the most dangerous
possible person.</i>

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<i>I had to fire...</i>

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There was a moment
where I just felt
like I was drowning.

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<i>And all of a sudden,
a whole series of things
started happening.</i>

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<i>I actually feel blessed
to be alive right now.</i>

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And I can tell my story.

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If we're going to war,
that means we failed.

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That's the-- that's
the fascinating thing about war.

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It is a absolute
failure of policy.

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It's a failure of diplomacy.
It's a failure of leadership.

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<i>Probably one
of the greatest sacrifices</i>

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<i>is when one lays down
their life for this country</i>

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<i>for reasons that they
don't even understand,</i>

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<i>and they do it</i>

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<i>trying to help people
that don't even care
if they're there.</i>

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<i>And... and they're dead.</i>

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<i>We are A-plus, gold star
for participating in war.</i>

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<i>We are a failure
at winning wars.</i>

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<i>Peace is the aberration
and war is the norm.</i>

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<i>No matter
how many times I've deployed</i>

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<i>to different places
where there was
some aspect of danger,</i>

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<i>you always feel
a sense of fear.</i>

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<i>Your experiences
help you overcome that,</i>

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<i>but you never are without it.</i>

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<i>You know,
coming off of a truck</i>

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<i>or getting off of a helicopter
or getting off of a plane</i>

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<i>in a place
where you can smell...</i>

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<i>death.</i>

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<i>You can smell fear.</i>

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<i>War is
like this massive racket.</i>

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<i>I mean, we are at war
constantly.</i>

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<i>At the end of the day,
it's about making money.</i>

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Sound's rolling,
all three cameras. We're good.

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I need speed.

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Okay. We're ready when you are.

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<i>I had just taken
command of a battalion</i>

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<i>of about between
500 and 600 people,</i>

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<i>and my operations NCO
comes in and says,</i>

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<i>"Hey, sir, we just had
a helicopter go down."</i>

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This is where I really learned
about being steady.

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Because when I think about that,
I mean, nine people. Poof.

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So as I'm walking up the road,
I-- I see the smoke,

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and I look,
and I walked right up to it.

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I mean, I was standing
right next to it.

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And... and it was just
one black patch

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that was like the outline
of a helicopter.

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Just a black patch in the--
on the ground,

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all burnt up,
with a bunch of bumps. Okay?

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Bumps that were probably
no more than,

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like, two feet high, okay,
and those were the bodies.

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And, you know, obviously,
the, the smell of the fuel

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that was burning,
the bodies that had burned.

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And so, there they are.

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They're just...
you're standing right there,

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you're standing there going,
"Holy crap."

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<i>On my orders, coalition forces
have begun striking</i>

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<i>selected targets
of military importance</i>

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<i>to undermine Saddam Hussein's
ability to wage war.</i>

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<i>When war
broke out in Iraq,</i>

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I was sort of like, well,
I guess we have to do this.

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But hold on a second.

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I didn't see,
I didn't connect the dots

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as to the reason why we didn't--

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we would invade
a sovereign nation like Iraq.

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I always questioned
the necessity of that war.

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I thought it was crazy,

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and I thought
the Bush administration

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managed it very poorly.

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The amount of money
that we spent

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in Afghanistan
for a losing cause
is more money,

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is more than was spent
on the Marshall Plan

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to rebuild Europe,
all of Europe,

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after World War II.

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<i>Let me show you...</i>

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I gave you a little bit
of explanation.

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This is wild.
- So Tucker...

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Tucker, I brought--
I'm brought in here
like about, I don't know,

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it was over a year,
a year and a half ago.

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I'm brought into this room,
and I meet these two moms.

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And I-- I was like,
"What caused you,

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what possessed you
to do something like this?"

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And it was basically,
"We believed so much

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in what was happening to you
that-- that it was wrong."

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And they said
on their spare time,
they put this together.

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<i>I personally
grew up in a completely
different world,</i>

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<i>where I didn't question
a lot of the big lies</i>

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<i>because I didn't realize
that they were lies.</i>

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I was complicit in the lying
without knowing it.

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I supported the war in Iraq
and argued on behalf of it
before it started.

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<i>And it wasn't until
I went to Iraq myself
in the winter of 2003</i>

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that I realized
how wrong I had been,

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the degree to which
I had been lied to.

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That was a big
turning point for you.
- It changed my life completely.

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And I realized I'd been
complicit in this lie.

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<i>I don't care
what party you're in.</i>

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They're in Washington, DC,
that's the party.

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They have
their black-tie affairs,

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their little clubs,
their little cliques,

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and they got their little
business enterprise that--

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that floats around
in these events.

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I would, I would be
sick to my stomach
in some of those things

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because you're
looking around going,

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"You know, these are
the son of a bitches

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that are just, you know."
I mean, we're still at war.

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There's people overseas
being killed.

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And I'm thinking to myself,
this is just not right.

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If you have the same people

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in charge of a series
of counterproductive wars

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from which the United States
derives nothing,

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only, you know, loss of life,
draining of the Treasury,

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evaporation of our prestige
and power abroad.

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The U.S. is much weaker

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because of the last
four wars we fought.

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Beginning in Vietnam in 1964,
from Tonkin Gulf to here.

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Fifty-nine years.

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We have not fought a war
that made the U.S. stronger.

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<i>When we confront a regime</i>

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<i>that harbors ambitions
for regional domination,</i>

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<i>hides weapons
of mass destruction,</i>

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<i>and provides haven
and active support
for terrorists,</i>

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<i>we're not confronting the past.</i>

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<i>We are confronting the present.</i>

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<i>And unless we act,
we are confronting</i>

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<i>an even more frightening
future.</i>

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<i>Powell will be
remembered for a lot of things;</i>

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you know, they make him out
to be a saint.

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That's what he'll be
remembered for in history.

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As a junior officer,
I couldn't really articulate it.

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But there was something there
that I felt, you know,

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it seemed as though
it's just a perpetual

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fraud, waste, and abuse...
life cycle.

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Yeah, we're gonna go
after terrorists,

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but you don't need
an entire machine,

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conventional machine,
to be in place constantly

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at all times in Afghanistan
or in Iraq, for that matter,

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<i>and-- or really any other place</i>

156
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<i>because we have
strategic capability</i>

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<i>to go in and out surgically
to address certain issues,</i>

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<i>literally within a few hours,
maximum one day, globally.</i>

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So, why not use that methodology

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rather than constantly
pumping in

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billions of dollars a month?

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They want the problem
to exist, so that--

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that money flow
and the constant defense budget

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<i>can go ahead and fund
the military-industrial
complex.</i>

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<i>He became very
close to Stanley McChrystal.</i>

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From what I read,
McChrystal told Michael,

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"You need to come in; I need--
we need to clean this up;

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we need to fix this thing."

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For whatever reason
we were there,

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we were able to get Iraq
under control

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because of the efforts
of Joint Special Operations
Command,

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<i>and specifically,
Michael's acumen</i>

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<i>in what he had been trained for
throughout his career in Intel.</i>

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<i>There are
193 countries on the planet,</i>

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<i>according to the United Nations.</i>

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The most premier unit
within the world

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to fight against terror,

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General Flynn was
the senior-ranking intelligence
officer in that unit.

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<i>You literally have to be
the number one intel officer</i>

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<i>for that year's cohort,
impeccable background,</i>

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not like a single blemish
in your entire military file,

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to be selected
for that position.

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<i>Mike's, you know,
pretty senior in rank
at that point.</i>

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00:12:00.854 --> 00:12:03.456
<i>He's maybe a two-star general,
one-or two-star general.</i>

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<i>And Charlie's there as well.
And what they're seeing is,</i>

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00:12:07.861 --> 00:12:10.097
<i>the information
that they're getting</i>

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about who the Taliban were,
how they were fighting,

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where they were getting their,
their ammunition and so forth,

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that they were getting
from the intel community
was a bunch of bullshit.

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<i>It was-- it was
poorly served up,</i>

191
00:12:20.407 --> 00:12:23.844
<i>and there was no
interagency coordination.</i>

192
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<i>I think Mike knew,</i>

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00:12:25.979 --> 00:12:27.514
<i>and I think
a lot of those guys knew</i>

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00:12:27.714 --> 00:12:29.282
<i>that if something drastic
wasn't done,</i>

195
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<i>they were going to be there
for a long time.</i>

196
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<i>I actually met
General Flynn</i>

197
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<i>for the first time,</i>

198
00:12:36.756 --> 00:12:40.560
uh, around 2005 or 2006,
in Iraq.

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We would go to areas
where they'd train

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military and military
intelligence.

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And General Flynn was,
oftentimes,

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<i>they'll put up on the screen,</i>

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00:12:51.004 --> 00:12:53.406
<i>as someone who had done
a superior job.</i>

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00:12:53.606 --> 00:12:57.244
<i>I mean, he was treated
as the greatest</i>

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00:12:57.444 --> 00:13:01.581
<i>intelligence general
for his generation.</i>

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00:13:01.748 --> 00:13:07.320
Everybody respected his ability
to really perfect intelligence.

207
00:13:07.520 --> 00:13:09.056
The objectives, the overall,

208
00:13:09.222 --> 00:13:15.762
our overarching objectives,
we got so far astray.

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00:13:15.929 --> 00:13:18.298
The Bush administration,
the Obama administration,

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00:13:18.465 --> 00:13:21.835
I mean, we just lost sight,
and you're like,

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you're in this constant war,
you know,

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and we would be having
these conversations going,

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"Jesus, you know,
when is this going to end?"

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00:13:28.942 --> 00:13:30.677
When, you know,
I mean, it can end.

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00:13:30.878 --> 00:13:33.313
It can actually end,
and it can end on our terms.

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00:13:35.248 --> 00:13:37.417
The report
you wrote in 2010...

217
00:13:37.584 --> 00:13:39.519
Right. Mm-hm.
"Fixing Intel."

218
00:13:39.719 --> 00:13:41.855
In fact, it's right here.
Let's see it.

219
00:13:42.055 --> 00:13:44.992
The full title:
"A Blueprint for Making

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00:13:45.158 --> 00:13:47.594
Intelligence Relevant
in Afghanistan."

221
00:13:47.760 --> 00:13:50.630
I was a senior intel officer
out in Afghanistan.

222
00:13:50.830 --> 00:13:53.700
<i>I mean, I went around
Afghanistan to,</i>

223
00:13:53.901 --> 00:13:56.536
<i>to damn near every
little town and village and--</i>

224
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<i>and I did my own assessment.</i>

225
00:13:58.972 --> 00:14:01.041
<i>And there was a lot of people
that didn't like that</i>

226
00:14:01.241 --> 00:14:02.642
<i>back in Washington, DC,
because--</i>

227
00:14:02.842 --> 00:14:04.344
<i>but I'm on the battlefield.</i>

228
00:14:05.312 --> 00:14:09.449
This is an indictment
of the intelligence community.

229
00:14:10.150 --> 00:14:13.653
And, and to a degree--
and I'm a part of it,

230
00:14:13.820 --> 00:14:17.024
so it wasn't like,
I'm not indicting them.

231
00:14:17.190 --> 00:14:19.359
I'm indicting something
that I'm a part of.

232
00:14:19.526 --> 00:14:24.564
What's in here are solutions,
and in a way, you know,

233
00:14:24.764 --> 00:14:28.001
I'm hoping
that it's not too late.

234
00:14:32.339 --> 00:14:34.407
<i>What General Michael Flynn
found out</i> ,

235
00:14:35.875 --> 00:14:40.213
all sorts of intelligence
that was necessary for soldiers

236
00:14:40.380 --> 00:14:43.150
as they were fighting
in Afghanistan,

237
00:14:43.350 --> 00:14:46.153
<i>it was all getting lost</i>

238
00:14:46.353 --> 00:14:48.521
<i>because it was being
collected in Afghanistan</i>

239
00:14:48.721 --> 00:14:50.523
<i>and having to go
through Washington</i>

240
00:14:50.690 --> 00:14:52.325
before it could come back
to Afghanistan.

241
00:14:52.492 --> 00:14:54.194
I mean, there were lives
being lost.

242
00:14:54.794 --> 00:14:58.431
You know, there were missions
that were botched,
and lives lost.

243
00:14:59.166 --> 00:15:02.835
There's an example
in our family of this in Iraq.

244
00:15:03.003 --> 00:15:04.871
Charlie was deployed in Iraq.

245
00:15:05.072 --> 00:15:08.075
<i>And Charlie was taking care
of the highways out of Baghdad</i>

246
00:15:08.241 --> 00:15:11.478
down into the gulf
through Kuwait.

247
00:15:12.245 --> 00:15:13.680
Charlie had a bunch of guys

248
00:15:13.846 --> 00:15:15.548
that were fighting
as an infantryman,

249
00:15:15.715 --> 00:15:17.550
and Mike's running intel
over there.

250
00:15:18.718 --> 00:15:21.421
So they're brothers.
There's a chain of command.

251
00:15:22.155 --> 00:15:23.890
But they're brothers.

252
00:15:24.591 --> 00:15:27.227
<i>So Charlie's able to tell Mike,
"Hey, this is
what I'm seeing down here."</i>

253
00:15:27.394 --> 00:15:29.196
Not having it filtered to Mike.

254
00:15:29.362 --> 00:15:32.465
If Charlie told him what was
going on down the street,

255
00:15:32.665 --> 00:15:35.668
okay, south of him,
and what they were seeing
down there,

256
00:15:35.868 --> 00:15:37.704
<i>that he was going to get
accurate information</i>

257
00:15:37.904 --> 00:15:39.872
<i>and be able to use that
and act on it.</i>

258
00:15:40.873 --> 00:15:42.475
<i>This gets published,</i>

259
00:15:42.675 --> 00:15:45.278
<i>huge outcry in Washington, DC,</i>

260
00:15:45.445 --> 00:15:50.283
the heads of the,
of all this just giant monolith

261
00:15:50.450 --> 00:15:53.220
called
the intelligence community,
all the agency heads were like,

262
00:15:53.386 --> 00:15:55.222
they wanted my head.

263
00:15:55.422 --> 00:15:59.026
Ten years of war.
<i>I stick my name
on that assessment.</i>

264
00:15:59.759 --> 00:16:01.861
<i>And I'm saying
to the intelligence community,</i>

265
00:16:02.062 --> 00:16:03.530
<i>we're still not
able to do our job,</i>

266
00:16:03.730 --> 00:16:05.198
<i>we're not doing our job.</i>

267
00:16:05.398 --> 00:16:07.000
<i>There's so many things
that are--</i>

268
00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:08.835
<i>that are addressed in here</i>

269
00:16:09.036 --> 00:16:12.339
from the perspective
of understanding your enemy,

270
00:16:12.539 --> 00:16:15.275
and understanding
the environment,
and understanding yourself.

271
00:16:15.442 --> 00:16:18.945
It's a very basic statement
about warfare.

272
00:16:22.282 --> 00:16:25.085
<i>For the officers,
the last promotion
is to major general.</i>

273
00:16:25.285 --> 00:16:27.420
<i>Everything after that
is an appointment</i>

274
00:16:27.620 --> 00:16:29.356
<i>by the president
of the United States.</i>

275
00:16:29.556 --> 00:16:32.392
<i>Jim Clapper wanted me,
he went to the president</i>

276
00:16:32.592 --> 00:16:34.027
<i>and the president appointed me.</i>

277
00:16:34.227 --> 00:16:36.363
<i>So in this case,
it's President Obama.</i>

278
00:16:39.466 --> 00:16:42.702
So President Obama
appoints me into that job

279
00:16:42.902 --> 00:16:45.505
as the assistant director
of National Intelligence,

280
00:16:45.672 --> 00:16:48.941
and then I have to go through
a full Senate confirmation.

281
00:16:49.109 --> 00:16:51.111
So I'm coming back
to Washington, DC,

282
00:16:51.278 --> 00:16:53.446
we're going to be able to keep
our family there, you know,

283
00:16:54.114 --> 00:16:56.216
this is good,
I'm going to get promoted.

284
00:17:06.959 --> 00:17:10.830
<i>Many recall the famous article
Mike Flynn wrote,</i>

285
00:17:11.030 --> 00:17:14.501
<i>called "A Blueprint for Making
Intelligence Relevant,"</i>

286
00:17:15.368 --> 00:17:18.738
<i>which is one of the reasons
why I brought Mike to ODNI</i> ,

287
00:17:19.439 --> 00:17:21.441
<i>to fix
all the intelligence issues</i>

288
00:17:21.641 --> 00:17:24.144
<i>that he'd been
complaining about.</i>

289
00:17:24.311 --> 00:17:25.845
There's a phrase
in the military,

290
00:17:26.012 --> 00:17:28.815
and I don't use my Irish
too often, but,

291
00:17:28.981 --> 00:17:31.751
you know, they say, "Fuck up
and move up." Right?

292
00:17:31.951 --> 00:17:34.854
And, you know, and I'm thinking,

293
00:17:35.021 --> 00:17:37.157
"Oh, maybe, maybe
I fucked up so bad

294
00:17:37.324 --> 00:17:40.427
that they're just going
to move me up to shut me up."

295
00:17:40.627 --> 00:17:44.897
It may very well be a case
of bringing your enemies

296
00:17:45.064 --> 00:17:46.833
as close as you can
so you can control them.

297
00:17:49.636 --> 00:17:51.438
<i>Big title, and a big job.</i>

298
00:17:51.638 --> 00:17:53.005
Big job, huge job.

299
00:17:53.173 --> 00:17:55.442
I mean, the pinnacle
of someone's career

300
00:17:56.042 --> 00:17:57.477
as an intelligence officer
in the United States Army,

301
00:17:57.677 --> 00:17:59.146
<i>it's like almost
the number one--</i>

302
00:17:59.346 --> 00:18:00.947
<i>it is the number one job,
in fact,</i>

303
00:18:01.148 --> 00:18:03.015
<i>unless you're the National
Security Advisor,</i>

304
00:18:03.216 --> 00:18:04.617
<i>which he ended up
becoming as well.</i>

305
00:18:07.053 --> 00:18:09.756
<i>I've had a lot
of time in combat,
probably more--</i>

306
00:18:09.922 --> 00:18:12.259
more time in combat
than most people, you know,

307
00:18:12.425 --> 00:18:15.228
that were
in my sort of category.

308
00:18:15.428 --> 00:18:17.730
<i>And I've had a lot of time,
you know, in the field, in--</i>

309
00:18:17.930 --> 00:18:20.400
<i>in operational assignments.</i>

310
00:18:20.567 --> 00:18:25.138
And, and I'm also a Democrat.

311
00:18:25.238 --> 00:18:27.240
<i>So we're Kennedy Democrats,</i>

312
00:18:27.940 --> 00:18:29.142
never Republicans.

313
00:18:31.911 --> 00:18:34.647
Your blue-collar
Kennedy Democrats.

314
00:18:35.582 --> 00:18:37.384
<i>And the media
loved Mike at that time,</i>

315
00:18:37.584 --> 00:18:39.719
<i>interestingly enough,
because again,</i>

316
00:18:39.919 --> 00:18:42.054
<i>the Obama administration's
saying, "Hey, this is our guy.</i>

317
00:18:42.255 --> 00:18:45.225
<i>He's a Democrat. He comes
from a Democrat family.</i>

318
00:18:45.392 --> 00:18:47.794
This guy has been in combat
for six, seven years,"

319
00:18:48.628 --> 00:18:52.365
all this stuff, but,
you know what,
kid from a small town,

320
00:18:52.565 --> 00:18:55.368
<i>who grew up in a huge
poor family, you know,</i>

321
00:18:55.568 --> 00:18:58.137
<i>something like that,
you know, it's a big deal.</i>

322
00:19:00.407 --> 00:19:02.609
<i>So there was a lot of problems
when he took over DIA.</i>

323
00:19:02.809 --> 00:19:04.544
<i>The establishment,
especially the,</i>

324
00:19:04.744 --> 00:19:08.047
<i>what they call the SES,
the senior executive staff,</i>

325
00:19:08.248 --> 00:19:11.284
<i>in the Department of Defense,
was like, "Oh, this guy.</i>

326
00:19:11.484 --> 00:19:14.754
<i>This is, you know, we've seen
these types before.</i>

327
00:19:14.921 --> 00:19:17.123
We're going
to railroad him out of here."

328
00:19:17.290 --> 00:19:19.992
I've kept every--
I'm like a pack rat
with stuff, you know:

329
00:19:20.159 --> 00:19:24.431
awards, decorations, gifts
that were given to me.

330
00:19:24.597 --> 00:19:26.933
And I've kept binders of them,
you know, different things.

331
00:19:27.133 --> 00:19:29.769
<i>And so,
what really drew me
to General Flynn,</i>

332
00:19:29.936 --> 00:19:32.839
even though we had not
started working together
formally at that point,

333
00:19:33.005 --> 00:19:34.974
is that in all
the meetings we had,

334
00:19:35.141 --> 00:19:40.447
he, his moral compass
was very clear,

335
00:19:40.647 --> 00:19:46.286
<i>and that was that,
as an American
government official,</i>

336
00:19:46.486 --> 00:19:49.356
<i>one must put the interests
of the United States first.</i>

337
00:19:49.522 --> 00:19:53.226
It's the mission which matters,
not the individual,

338
00:19:53.426 --> 00:19:56.463
not lining your pockets
for your career

339
00:19:56.629 --> 00:19:58.298
after you retire
from government,

340
00:19:58.465 --> 00:20:01.200
not building your empire
to get to the next,

341
00:20:01.368 --> 00:20:03.336
you know, rung
within the federal government.

342
00:20:03.503 --> 00:20:06.239
That this is what matters,
and it was wonderful to see

343
00:20:06.439 --> 00:20:09.175
that someone could rise
to such heights

344
00:20:09.342 --> 00:20:11.077
while keeping so true

345
00:20:11.278 --> 00:20:13.713
to these values
that made America great.

346
00:20:13.880 --> 00:20:15.748
He was one
of the most respected generals

347
00:20:15.948 --> 00:20:18.150
in the military,
plain and simple.

348
00:20:18.318 --> 00:20:21.721
And so, you know,
what more can we ask for

349
00:20:21.888 --> 00:20:24.190
than to have one
of our most successful generals

350
00:20:24.357 --> 00:20:28.194
be at the top
of the intelligence apparatus
for our military?

351
00:20:28.361 --> 00:20:30.497
And that's why
he had strong support.

352
00:20:30.697 --> 00:20:32.499
<i>But in January,
President Obama told</i>

353
00:20:32.699 --> 00:20:35.201
<i>the New Yorker magazine's
David Remnick that ISIS,</i>

354
00:20:35.402 --> 00:20:38.338
<i>which was then still considered
a part of Al-Qaeda</i>

355
00:20:38.538 --> 00:20:41.874
<i>fighting in Syria,
was like a JV basketball team.</i>

356
00:20:42.041 --> 00:20:43.610
These guys are--

357
00:20:43.810 --> 00:20:48.748
they want him to say
that the ISIS is the JV team,

358
00:20:48.915 --> 00:20:53.219
and-- and he's like,
that's not what--
that's not going to happen.

359
00:20:53.386 --> 00:20:54.954
They wanted
that narrative to show

360
00:20:55.154 --> 00:20:59.258
that we were being tough
on the enemy overseas

361
00:20:59.426 --> 00:21:01.561
that we were fighting,
and that we were winning.

362
00:21:01.761 --> 00:21:04.797
<i>We weren't winning.
And in fact,
the enemy is growing.</i>

363
00:21:04.997 --> 00:21:05.932
<i>They're expanding.</i>

364
00:21:08.901 --> 00:21:10.337
<i>Now, the way
I remember it is...</i>

365
00:21:10.537 --> 00:21:12.372
<i>we're getting ready
to go testify</i>

366
00:21:12.572 --> 00:21:14.741
<i>to Congress
in an open hearing,</i>

367
00:21:14.941 --> 00:21:18.511
<i>and I get my statement
that had been vetted</i>

368
00:21:18.711 --> 00:21:21.314
<i>through the National
Intelligence Community,</i>

369
00:21:21.514 --> 00:21:24.317
<i>and through the DNI and also
over to the White House.</i>

370
00:21:24.517 --> 00:21:28.321
It's basically got red lines
to change my testimony there, right?

371
00:21:28.521 --> 00:21:31.391
<i>Everybody wants to hear
all the different perspectives</i>

372
00:21:31.591 --> 00:21:33.192
<i>from these different
organizations.</i>

373
00:21:33.393 --> 00:21:35.027
<i>So mine was changed.</i>

374
00:21:35.227 --> 00:21:38.431
<i>And I told my Congressional
Affairs officer,</i>

375
00:21:38.631 --> 00:21:40.099
<i>I said, "I'm not
going to change it.</i>

376
00:21:40.299 --> 00:21:42.001
<i>That's not...
that's not right."</i>

377
00:21:42.969 --> 00:21:47.106
A lot of people on the inside
that were the underperformers

378
00:21:47.273 --> 00:21:51.611
had a lot of institutional clout
that pushed for that as well.

379
00:21:51.778 --> 00:21:54.947
It was literally
a, an organization

380
00:21:55.114 --> 00:21:56.783
that had rot in it,

381
00:21:56.949 --> 00:21:59.586
that wanted to keep
that rot in place.

382
00:21:59.752 --> 00:22:01.788
I know what the CIA's reporting,

383
00:22:01.954 --> 00:22:05.157
I know what the National
Geospatial Agency, you know,

384
00:22:05.324 --> 00:22:07.259
National Security Agency, FBI,

385
00:22:07.427 --> 00:22:08.928
all these different
organizations are reporting.

386
00:22:09.095 --> 00:22:11.097
But I'm responsible
for my agency,

387
00:22:11.263 --> 00:22:12.699
and I'm responsible
to tell the truth

388
00:22:12.899 --> 00:22:15.668
for what my agency,
you know, believes.

389
00:22:15.835 --> 00:22:18.270
This, this organization
called ISIS

390
00:22:18.438 --> 00:22:21.441
was expanding rapidly
and they were in like

391
00:22:21.608 --> 00:22:25.745
20-, you know,
- four or -five nations
around the greater region from,

392
00:22:25.945 --> 00:22:28.047
<i>from literally
from West Africa,
all the way over to,</i>

393
00:22:28.247 --> 00:22:30.950
<i>in some cases, Indonesia
and the Philippines.</i>

394
00:22:32.151 --> 00:22:36.823
I'm called into a,
an office call with Jim Clapper.

395
00:22:36.989 --> 00:22:38.357
So he goes, "We're gonna
ask you to step down,"

396
00:22:38.525 --> 00:22:40.159
and immediately,
immediately, I said,

397
00:22:40.326 --> 00:22:41.961
"Is it because
of my leadership?"

398
00:22:42.128 --> 00:22:43.896
He says, "Oh, no,
it's not your leadership.

399
00:22:44.096 --> 00:22:46.232
If it was, I'd cut you off
at the knees right now

400
00:22:46.433 --> 00:22:48.000
and you wouldn't go back
into the job."

401
00:22:48.200 --> 00:22:49.669
<i>That was my interpretation.</i>

402
00:22:50.937 --> 00:22:52.038
<i>He said, "It's because of--"</i>

403
00:22:52.204 --> 00:22:54.607
and he used the word "attitude."

404
00:22:55.207 --> 00:22:56.643
<i>That's how I remember it.</i>

405
00:22:58.511 --> 00:22:59.979
And I walked out of that room.

406
00:23:00.146 --> 00:23:03.382
And I called my wife,
and I said, you know,

407
00:23:03.550 --> 00:23:05.852
"Honey, things are gonna
change again," you know.

408
00:23:06.018 --> 00:23:08.254
And, and, you know,
in a funny way,

409
00:23:08.455 --> 00:23:10.657
even got a story about it,
you know,

410
00:23:10.823 --> 00:23:13.092
if she even remembers
that, that part,
'cause there was so many.

411
00:23:13.292 --> 00:23:15.327
But she was probably relieved,

412
00:23:15.495 --> 00:23:18.197
I was, you know,
finally gonna retire.

413
00:23:18.364 --> 00:23:21.000
I never changed.
I never changed.

414
00:23:21.167 --> 00:23:24.236
People that know me
from the time I was a kid,

415
00:23:24.403 --> 00:23:27.874
to the people that worked
with me as a young officer

416
00:23:28.040 --> 00:23:31.511
and all throughout my career,
I never changed.

417
00:23:31.678 --> 00:23:34.714
So what changed in Jim Clapper,
who brought me in and hired me?

418
00:23:34.914 --> 00:23:38.451
<i>What changed, Jim?
What changed?</i>

419
00:23:38.651 --> 00:23:44.457
Was it because
I wasn't toeing the line
for the administration?

420
00:23:44.657 --> 00:23:46.926
I wasn't toeing the line
for the,

421
00:23:47.093 --> 00:23:49.929
the "intelligence community's",
you know,

422
00:23:50.096 --> 00:23:53.733
incorrect, false narrative.

423
00:23:53.900 --> 00:23:58.538
And, and, sadly,
you know, tragically,

424
00:24:01.073 --> 00:24:04.877
you know,
when I think about, God,
like, fuck, that was 2014.

425
00:24:06.045 --> 00:24:09.982
When I think
about six more years of fighting

426
00:24:10.182 --> 00:24:13.385
and dying and the bullshit.

427
00:24:15.688 --> 00:24:20.226
You know? I mean, my--
my responsibility as a--

428
00:24:20.392 --> 00:24:22.394
as a senior officer
in the military,

429
00:24:22.562 --> 00:24:24.396
and definitely as a senior
intelligence officer,

430
00:24:24.564 --> 00:24:29.669
is to protect, save,
and, and win.

431
00:24:29.869 --> 00:24:35.141
These assholes are toeing
a political narrative

432
00:24:35.307 --> 00:24:37.109
that was total bullshit.

433
00:24:38.277 --> 00:24:40.513
Something
didn't smell right for me.

434
00:24:40.713 --> 00:24:46.185
<i>And the very next day,
I sent a direct message</i>

435
00:24:46.385 --> 00:24:49.255
and it said, "Sir, I think
I know what happened to you.

436
00:24:50.422 --> 00:24:52.324
Unacceptable.

437
00:24:52.491 --> 00:24:56.428
You have a loyal soldier
for the rest of your life.

438
00:24:56.596 --> 00:24:59.966
Let me know if you ever need to,
like utilize me to help out."

439
00:25:00.132 --> 00:25:02.301
Because I thought
that that was, uh,

440
00:25:02.468 --> 00:25:04.771
him being resigned
was totally unacceptable.

441
00:25:14.947 --> 00:25:16.616
I loved DC. I loved Virginia.

442
00:25:16.783 --> 00:25:18.618
We loved being there,
we loved living there,

443
00:25:18.785 --> 00:25:23.055
we had happy times there
until this all happened

444
00:25:23.255 --> 00:25:26.559
when he retired
and then decided to go
and work on his own.

445
00:25:26.759 --> 00:25:30.229
<i>In your career,
I have always found,
whether it's in your service,</i>

446
00:25:30.429 --> 00:25:32.832
<i>or if you spent a lot of time
in a joint community,</i>

447
00:25:33.032 --> 00:25:38.004
<i>you will
run across individuals,
and you will say to yourself,</i>

448
00:25:38.204 --> 00:25:40.640
<i>"That guy is amazing."</i>

449
00:25:40.840 --> 00:25:45.011
<i>And early on, when I met Mike,
I thought to myself,
"That guy is amazing."</i>

450
00:25:45.712 --> 00:25:47.513
<i>Today, as we would say
in the Navy,</i>

451
00:25:47.714 --> 00:25:49.649
<i>we watch pass over the side,</i>

452
00:25:50.482 --> 00:25:53.252
<i>probably the most visible
intelligence professional</i>

453
00:25:53.452 --> 00:25:55.755
<i>that we have generated
within this department</i>

454
00:25:55.955 --> 00:25:57.690
<i>in the last ten or 20 years.</i>

455
00:25:58.357 --> 00:26:00.593
<i>So Mike, we all want to say
thank you for a great job.</i>

456
00:26:00.793 --> 00:26:03.763
<i>We want to thank you for making
a great, great difference.</i>

457
00:26:03.963 --> 00:26:05.798
<i>Lori, we wish you
only the best.</i>

458
00:26:06.532 --> 00:26:08.668
<i>We know there's a lot
of opportunities ahead of you.</i>

459
00:26:08.868 --> 00:26:11.437
<i>I can't wait to see where
the journey is gonna take you.</i>

460
00:26:11.638 --> 00:26:13.906
<i>I don't think we've heard
the last of the Flynns.</i>

461
00:26:14.073 --> 00:26:19.578
That was, without a doubt,
a real test of the relationship

462
00:26:19.746 --> 00:26:25.351
and, um, and she was patient.

463
00:26:25.517 --> 00:26:29.021
And I saw her get mad.
But she knew he was right.

464
00:26:29.188 --> 00:26:30.890
And I knew, we all knew
he was right.

465
00:26:31.057 --> 00:26:34.861
Lori was a stabilizing force
in his life.

466
00:26:35.027 --> 00:26:36.362
She's a special gal.

467
00:26:36.528 --> 00:26:40.833
She's strong,
unwavering commitment.

468
00:26:41.033 --> 00:26:44.503
<i>I think Lori saved his life
actually, as a teenager,
if you ask me.</i>

469
00:26:44.704 --> 00:26:48.708
<i>I think that if Michael
hadn't really, you know,</i>

470
00:26:48.908 --> 00:26:51.878
<i>been kind of swept up
in that relationship
as a teenager--</i>

471
00:26:52.078 --> 00:26:55.982
<i>you're talking 14,
15 years old,
that's a young person--</i>

472
00:26:56.716 --> 00:26:58.050
I think that Michael
could have gone

473
00:26:58.217 --> 00:27:00.052
a completely different
direction.

474
00:27:00.219 --> 00:27:01.954
Probably God at work there,
honestly,

475
00:27:02.121 --> 00:27:03.756
whith that relationship
blooming.

476
00:27:03.923 --> 00:27:06.726
And who would have thought
that at 14 and 15 years old,

477
00:27:06.893 --> 00:27:08.627
you know,
they'd be married today,

478
00:27:08.795 --> 00:27:10.797
40-- after all they've been
through, I don't know,

479
00:27:10.963 --> 00:27:13.465
48 years,
almost going on 50 years.

480
00:27:13.632 --> 00:27:16.568
But that relationship
at that time in Michael's life

481
00:27:17.436 --> 00:27:19.706
<i>gave him a reason
to get focused on something.</i>

482
00:27:19.906 --> 00:27:23.209
<i>He did better in school.
He did better in sports.</i>

483
00:27:23.409 --> 00:27:25.678
<i>He got really into really
playing sports in school.</i>

484
00:27:25.878 --> 00:27:28.147
Of course,
then when he went into,

485
00:27:28.314 --> 00:27:30.516
when he went
to University of Rhode Island,

486
00:27:30.717 --> 00:27:34.253
the army and the ROTC program
was another godsend for him,

487
00:27:34.420 --> 00:27:38.257
you know, for a rambunctious guy
like Mike Flynn.

488
00:27:40.960 --> 00:27:44.196
<i>I went to kindergarten
through eighth grade
in one Catholic school,</i>

489
00:27:44.396 --> 00:27:46.465
<i>and then didn't go
to a public school</i>

490
00:27:46.632 --> 00:27:48.434
till I was in the ninth grade.

491
00:27:48.600 --> 00:27:52.839
That was a big eye-opener
for me, for sure.

492
00:27:52.939 --> 00:27:54.774
<i>And that's when
I first met Mike, too,</i>

493
00:27:54.974 --> 00:27:57.276
<i>that summer
going into the ninth grade.</i>

494
00:27:57.476 --> 00:28:00.046
<i>You know, we didn't date
in ninth grade or anything.</i>

495
00:28:00.246 --> 00:28:03.149
<i>We just kind of
went steady for two weeks,</i>

496
00:28:03.349 --> 00:28:05.785
<i>and then we went
our separate ways.</i>

497
00:28:05.985 --> 00:28:07.754
<i>I mean, I always saw him
in the halls in high school,</i>

498
00:28:07.954 --> 00:28:09.956
<i>but we kind of had our own life
the next two years,</i>

499
00:28:10.156 --> 00:28:12.792
<i>and then our senior year,
we got back together again.</i>

500
00:28:12.992 --> 00:28:15.061
<i>We both said that night</i>

501
00:28:15.261 --> 00:28:17.163
<i>that if we go out
with each other again,
this is it.</i>

502
00:28:17.329 --> 00:28:19.298
You're not, you know,
no, no straying.

503
00:28:19.498 --> 00:28:21.100
<i>So when Lori and I
were married,</i>

504
00:28:21.300 --> 00:28:23.770
<i>during the wedding ceremony,
the priest,</i>

505
00:28:23.970 --> 00:28:27.073
<i>who was also a cousin of ours,
Philip, Father Philip.</i>

506
00:28:27.273 --> 00:28:29.475
There's a part of the beach
and we call it the Rock.

507
00:28:29.675 --> 00:28:32.078
<i>We would go spend
a lot of time surfing there.</i>

508
00:28:32.278 --> 00:28:35.848
<i>He described Lori
as that rock, unmovable.</i>

509
00:28:36.783 --> 00:28:39.451
He described me as the tide.

510
00:28:40.452 --> 00:28:43.255
I think my husband
is the rock, really.

511
00:28:44.523 --> 00:28:48.227
<i>I think we're a great team
together.</i>

512
00:28:48.394 --> 00:28:53.132
I can't say that I never lost it
during this whole thing.

513
00:28:54.333 --> 00:28:59.538
<i>There were times
that I was pretty rock-bottom.</i>

514
00:28:59.638 --> 00:29:04.376
<i>And he always was the strength
that I needed to go on.</i>

515
00:29:04.543 --> 00:29:07.713
I mean, he always had
the best-case scenarios
that we would, you know,

516
00:29:07.880 --> 00:29:09.782
he would always put it
in a better light than I could.

517
00:29:09.982 --> 00:29:13.619
And there could have been
no better description
in our marriage.

518
00:29:13.820 --> 00:29:16.923
<i>You know, we're getting ready
to go into 42 years
of marriage.</i>

519
00:29:17.857 --> 00:29:20.659
<i>You know,
we've known each other
since we were 13 years old.</i>

520
00:29:21.760 --> 00:29:27.633
<i>A steady rock
in this ebb and flow of life.</i>

521
00:29:28.667 --> 00:29:32.671
<i>And I knew
that I could depend on her
to do a lot of things that--</i>

522
00:29:32.872 --> 00:29:34.673
<i>that I was not
going to be able to do.</i>

523
00:29:34.874 --> 00:29:36.943
<i>And many of the times
'cause I'm deployed.</i>

524
00:29:37.977 --> 00:29:42.314
<i>Uh, prayer and God
came back into my life,
into both of our lives,</i>

525
00:29:42.514 --> 00:29:45.084
<i>because we were
at wit's end sometimes.</i>

526
00:29:45.251 --> 00:29:49.889
And that was
one of the only things
that we knew we had.

527
00:29:50.056 --> 00:29:53.659
May the rain
fall soft upon your fields,
and until we meet again--

528
00:29:53.860 --> 00:29:56.662
May God hold
you in the palm of his hand.

529
00:29:56.863 --> 00:29:59.298
- Amen. Amen.
- Sláinte. Sláinte. Sláinte.

530
00:29:59.465 --> 00:30:01.600
The house that we ended up
growing up in,

531
00:30:01.767 --> 00:30:05.237
in Rhode Island,
belonged to my grandfather.

532
00:30:05.404 --> 00:30:07.773
We came back to this house
that had one bedroom,

533
00:30:07.940 --> 00:30:10.342
one little tiny bathroom,
a little tiny kitchen.

534
00:30:10.542 --> 00:30:13.312
All the boys were in, uh,
were in bunk beds,

535
00:30:13.479 --> 00:30:15.347
and my parents slept
in the living room--

536
00:30:15.547 --> 00:30:17.783
there was a pullout couch--
for a while.

537
00:30:17.950 --> 00:30:21.187
There were three oldest,
three middle,
and three youngest.

538
00:30:21.387 --> 00:30:23.289
And I was part
of the three youngest,

539
00:30:23.455 --> 00:30:25.424
so I would be in the bathroom,

540
00:30:25.591 --> 00:30:28.427
and I would never
get like it alone.

541
00:30:28.594 --> 00:30:31.430
I would be scrubbing my teeth
and so the boys would come in,

542
00:30:31.597 --> 00:30:33.832
you know, "I gotta go,"
because it was one bathroom.

543
00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:37.369
But that bathroom door,
it got knocked down a few times.

544
00:30:46.312 --> 00:30:51.150
<i>Here's, you know,
nine kids, 11 people
in a 1,200-square-foot house.</i>

545
00:30:52.318 --> 00:30:54.286
<i>So our backyard,
our playground,</i>

546
00:30:54.486 --> 00:30:56.488
<i>was the ocean,
was the Atlantic Ocean.</i>

547
00:30:58.357 --> 00:31:01.994
My parents were great.
They just let us go.

548
00:31:04.263 --> 00:31:06.665
<i>The beach was there.</i>

549
00:31:06.865 --> 00:31:09.902
<i>The water was an outlet for us.</i>

550
00:31:10.102 --> 00:31:13.072
<i>I mean, I'm paddling out
when I was seven
or eight years old,</i>

551
00:31:13.272 --> 00:31:16.875
<i>in the lineup in big waves
off Ruggles Avenue.</i>

552
00:31:18.110 --> 00:31:21.213
It was literally, you could
run out in our backyard,

553
00:31:21.380 --> 00:31:23.715
pick up a, you know,
a throwin' rock,

554
00:31:23.882 --> 00:31:26.152
and you could throw it
into the ocean.
It was that close.

555
00:31:26.352 --> 00:31:30.622
<i>And we started to realize,
"Hey, there's guys
out there surfing."</i>

556
00:31:30.722 --> 00:31:33.159
<i>And we could swim like fish.</i>

557
00:31:35.094 --> 00:31:37.663
<i>And the kids would
be swarming all over the beach.</i>

558
00:31:37.863 --> 00:31:41.333
<i>I mean, there'd be like
five or six of them.
That, that was a lot of fun.</i>

559
00:31:41.533 --> 00:31:43.202
<i>It really was a lot of fun.</i>

560
00:31:43.402 --> 00:31:45.371
<i>You know,
we would go surf all winter,</i>

561
00:31:45.571 --> 00:31:46.672
<i>surf in hurricanes.</i>

562
00:31:46.872 --> 00:31:49.275
<i>And so, it taught us a lot</i>

563
00:31:49.475 --> 00:31:53.045
<i>about endurance,
being in the ocean for hours.</i>

564
00:31:53.245 --> 00:31:55.614
<i>There's
a lot of people that surf,</i>

565
00:31:55.814 --> 00:31:59.385
<i>but those of us that find it
as a spiritual thing...</i>

566
00:32:01.920 --> 00:32:04.090
In our family,
it's a spiritual thing.

567
00:32:05.657 --> 00:32:06.959
<i>It's very, very powerful.</i>

568
00:32:07.159 --> 00:32:08.594
<i>You have to respect the power.</i>

569
00:32:09.561 --> 00:32:11.830
<i>What is it telling you
at times?</i>

570
00:32:12.698 --> 00:32:14.200
<i>If you're out in big surf,
that, you know,</i>

571
00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:16.402
<i>your life could turn
in a second.</i>

572
00:32:16.602 --> 00:32:20.006
<i>Taking off on a wave,
wiped out...</i>

573
00:32:20.106 --> 00:32:23.642
<i>been dragged down
and felt like,</i>

574
00:32:23.842 --> 00:32:25.311
<i>I'm out here all alone.</i>

575
00:32:27.679 --> 00:32:31.750
<i>That is a respect
that I learned,</i>

576
00:32:31.950 --> 00:32:34.086
<i>and I still have it
to this day.</i>

577
00:32:40.226 --> 00:32:42.728
<i>You got to remember,
your entire adult life
is in the military.</i>

578
00:32:42.928 --> 00:32:45.497
<i>All you know is a command
structure like the military.</i>

579
00:32:45.697 --> 00:32:49.268
<i>You don't have a lot
of experience in business.
You're getting things set up.</i>

580
00:32:49.468 --> 00:32:50.769
<i>You know,
he wants to work.</i>

581
00:32:50.969 --> 00:32:52.771
<i>He still wants to have,
you know,</i>

582
00:32:52.971 --> 00:32:55.107
<i>service to country again.</i>

583
00:32:55.274 --> 00:32:58.310
Michael Jr. was actually
working for a company
that I was running at the time,

584
00:32:58.477 --> 00:33:00.812
and he came to me and said,
"I'm going to go work
for my dad,

585
00:33:00.979 --> 00:33:02.814
we're going to start
a consulting group."

586
00:33:02.981 --> 00:33:05.817
Companies were hiring him
for advisory work.

587
00:33:05.984 --> 00:33:08.620
I think he was on some boards
of some private equity groups.

588
00:33:08.787 --> 00:33:12.024
Normal stuff that generals do
when they get out of service.

589
00:33:12.224 --> 00:33:14.860
We essentially formed
a business together.

590
00:33:15.061 --> 00:33:16.595
He was just like, "You want
to go into business together?"

591
00:33:16.762 --> 00:33:18.764
I said, "Absolutely."
I mean, this was a guy

592
00:33:18.930 --> 00:33:22.834
that I had grown up
idolizing my entire life,

593
00:33:23.001 --> 00:33:24.970
and this was a chance for me to,

594
00:33:25.137 --> 00:33:28.540
to get to know my father,
you know? And...

595
00:33:32.444 --> 00:33:37.983
No, it was-- it was...
It was, uh...

596
00:33:38.150 --> 00:33:39.651
it was an opportunity
I knew I had to take,

597
00:33:39.818 --> 00:33:41.187
that I wanted to take.

598
00:33:42.421 --> 00:33:45.291
I love the idea
of being able to work with him

599
00:33:45.457 --> 00:33:48.960
because for many, many years
of his life, I wasn't around,

600
00:33:49.128 --> 00:33:52.631
with military and deployments
and moves and, and,

601
00:33:52.798 --> 00:33:55.834
and schools and high schools
and baseball games and--

602
00:33:56.001 --> 00:33:57.503
and birthdays and hell,

603
00:33:57.669 --> 00:33:59.871
I almost didn't make it
to his wedding.

604
00:34:00.038 --> 00:34:02.874
I flew in from Afghanistan
the night before his wedding.

605
00:34:03.642 --> 00:34:06.912
And I was lucky that I made it.

606
00:34:07.813 --> 00:34:10.316
<i>I was so happy that I was going
to be able to do that with him</i>

607
00:34:10.516 --> 00:34:14.186
<i>to be closer to him,
work with him on a daily basis.</i>

608
00:34:15.687 --> 00:34:19.091
People started
to reach out to him
to ask him for his advice

609
00:34:19.291 --> 00:34:21.627
on a lot of the foreign, um,

610
00:34:21.827 --> 00:34:24.130
<i>you know, what was happening
in foreign countries.</i>

611
00:34:24.330 --> 00:34:27.099
<i>And so, he was
advising everybody.</i>

612
00:34:27.299 --> 00:34:29.268
<i>When I looked
at what the country needed,</i>

613
00:34:29.468 --> 00:34:32.571
the country didn't need
another Clinton or another Bush.

614
00:34:33.739 --> 00:34:34.740
That was clear.

615
00:34:38.210 --> 00:34:40.612
<i>I am pretty
sure that he knew then</i>

616
00:34:40.812 --> 00:34:44.416
<i>that Donald Trump
was going to be the nominee.</i>

617
00:34:44.583 --> 00:34:47.018
We did meet
with other candidates.

618
00:34:47.186 --> 00:34:51.357
I mean, I remember sitting down
with Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina,
Ted Cruz.

619
00:34:51.523 --> 00:34:56.762
Probably why I wasn't
asked to help those,
Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton.

620
00:34:56.928 --> 00:34:59.931
But also I never said no,
I was just never asked.

621
00:35:00.098 --> 00:35:03.402
You know, I was--
I was praying that there was
going to be somebody

622
00:35:03.569 --> 00:35:09.408
that rose out of the ashes
who wasn't a typical politician.

623
00:35:09.575 --> 00:35:12.244
And I looked at him
and I go, "Donald Trump?
Are you out of your mind?"

624
00:35:12.411 --> 00:35:14.380
And he goes,
"I'm telling you right now,

625
00:35:14.546 --> 00:35:16.248
Donald Trump
can beat Hillary Clinton."

626
00:35:16.415 --> 00:35:17.916
I said, "Why?"

627
00:35:18.083 --> 00:35:19.985
He goes,
"Because the country is--

628
00:35:20.186 --> 00:35:22.454
the country's ready
for something different."

629
00:35:25.224 --> 00:35:29.761
<i>He met Trump
for the first time in 2015.</i>

630
00:35:29.928 --> 00:35:33.799
He expected it to only be like
maybe a 20-to 30-minute meeting.

631
00:35:33.965 --> 00:35:36.168
It turned into like
a two-and-a-half-hour-long
meeting.

632
00:35:36.368 --> 00:35:40.105
If we can end these,
these wars that we are in,

633
00:35:40.272 --> 00:35:42.007
we're-- where we're pouring
trillions and trillions
of dollars,

634
00:35:42.208 --> 00:35:43.809
and we're not winning.

635
00:35:43.975 --> 00:35:46.312
And Trump was the one
that had that, that's,

636
00:35:46.478 --> 00:35:49.315
that was the conversation
that I initially had with him.

637
00:35:49.481 --> 00:35:52.818
I was happy
to support Trump as well

638
00:35:52.984 --> 00:35:55.153
because I just wanted to see,
I wanted--

639
00:35:55.321 --> 00:35:57.356
I didn't see all the hope
and change as much as I wanted,

640
00:35:57.556 --> 00:35:59.625
you know, with Obama.

641
00:35:59.791 --> 00:36:01.593
And I wanted to see
what would happen with Trump.

642
00:36:01.760 --> 00:36:03.362
My first bombshell.

643
00:36:04.330 --> 00:36:07.699
My first,
"Uh-oh," was,

644
00:36:08.400 --> 00:36:10.035
and I was proud of him.

645
00:36:10.236 --> 00:36:14.306
I was, it's true, but was
at that Republican convention.

646
00:36:14.473 --> 00:36:18.043
But I was concerned
about that with him

647
00:36:18.244 --> 00:36:23.315
because he was now in a--
in another world with politics.

648
00:36:23.515 --> 00:36:26.952
<i>Elect Donald Trump</i>

649
00:36:27.152 --> 00:36:30.722
<i>as the next president
of the United States
of America.</i>

650
00:36:30.922 --> 00:36:33.625
<i>Thank you very much,
and God bless America.</i>

651
00:36:33.825 --> 00:36:35.894
<i>From that moment on,
I really,</i>

652
00:36:36.094 --> 00:36:39.665
I started to ride with,
with, with Donald Trump,

653
00:36:39.831 --> 00:36:41.300
literally ride with him.

654
00:36:41.467 --> 00:36:43.001
And we'd fly
all over the country

655
00:36:43.168 --> 00:36:45.371
and go to these different
campaign rallies.

656
00:36:45.537 --> 00:36:48.507
We'd do three or four cities
in a day.

657
00:36:48.674 --> 00:36:52.110
And every place that we went to
would have no less than

658
00:36:52.311 --> 00:36:55.947
<i>10,000 people,
and in most cases,
they had 20-, 30,000 people.</i>

659
00:36:56.147 --> 00:36:59.751
<i>Unbelievable.</i>

660
00:37:01.853 --> 00:37:03.589
<i>USA!</i>

661
00:37:03.789 --> 00:37:05.424
<i>We are going
to win back the White House.</i>

662
00:37:05.624 --> 00:37:08.193
<i>It reinforced
for me the sentiment</i>

663
00:37:08.394 --> 00:37:11.530
<i>that I felt about the direction
of the country.</i>

664
00:37:11.697 --> 00:37:14.700
These big institutions,
these complexes, right?

665
00:37:14.866 --> 00:37:16.602
I call it the security
state complex,

666
00:37:16.802 --> 00:37:20.105
the military-industrial complex,
where they were leading us.

667
00:37:21.273 --> 00:37:24.776
And they're leading us
down a path that,

668
00:37:24.976 --> 00:37:26.912
that nobody wants to go down.

669
00:37:27.078 --> 00:37:28.914
You know, it's like
they say, right,

670
00:37:29.080 --> 00:37:30.849
Flynn knows where
the bodies are buried.

671
00:37:31.016 --> 00:37:34.853
That's a metaphor
for understanding how dangerous

672
00:37:35.020 --> 00:37:38.490
our system of government
has, has become.

673
00:37:38.690 --> 00:37:42.794
<i>And now I'm advising a guy
who looks to be, you know, a,</i>

674
00:37:42.994 --> 00:37:45.631
<i>he's the front runner
for one of the major parties.</i>

675
00:37:46.565 --> 00:37:48.300
And he's gonna, you know,
he has a shot at being

676
00:37:48.500 --> 00:37:50.469
president of the United States
of America.

677
00:37:50.669 --> 00:37:53.038
Big deal, right?
It's huge. It's a start.

678
00:37:53.939 --> 00:38:00.312
And so you fast forward into,
into June of 2016.

679
00:38:00.512 --> 00:38:02.781
And now I get a phone call
from Corey Lewandowski saying,

680
00:38:02.948 --> 00:38:06.051
"Hey, we're going to vet you
for vice president
of the United States."

681
00:38:06.685 --> 00:38:10.055
I says, "Wow."
That's-- that was like--

682
00:38:10.221 --> 00:38:11.590
I didn't expect that.

683
00:38:11.757 --> 00:38:15.026
I'm saying it. I don't-- I think

684
00:38:15.226 --> 00:38:17.563
<i>Pence envied
Mike's relationship
with Donald Trump.</i>

685
00:38:18.964 --> 00:38:23.335
<i>Trump respects people
that know how to work.</i>

686
00:38:23.535 --> 00:38:26.271
<i>Pence was
a lifetime politician.</i>

687
00:38:26.472 --> 00:38:29.641
<i>Priebus was
a lifetime politician</i> .

688
00:38:29.808 --> 00:38:32.911
They're GOP party hacks.

689
00:38:33.078 --> 00:38:38.183
Mike was
a dyed-in-the-wool soldier.

690
00:38:39.485 --> 00:38:45.491
Trump traveled
with Michael for months
before he was elected.

691
00:38:46.425 --> 00:38:48.326
Pence was pulled in politically.

692
00:38:48.494 --> 00:38:53.365
Mike became close to Trump
as a friend and trusted...

693
00:38:54.332 --> 00:38:58.370
I don't know, advisor,
ally in the trenches through--

694
00:38:58.570 --> 00:39:01.039
through the election process.

695
00:39:01.239 --> 00:39:06.311
<i>Mike Pence,
Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie,
and Mike Flynn.</i>

696
00:39:06.512 --> 00:39:08.547
<i>You know, and it's humbling.</i>

697
00:39:08.747 --> 00:39:10.916
<i>It's a humbling,
humbling experience,</i>

698
00:39:11.116 --> 00:39:14.586
<i>to even be considered, to be
thought about like that.</i>

699
00:39:14.786 --> 00:39:17.456
<i>The fascinating thing
about that is</i>

700
00:39:18.123 --> 00:39:20.726
that, of those four people,
three of them were,

701
00:39:20.926 --> 00:39:23.328
I would call,
hardcore Republicans.

702
00:39:23.495 --> 00:39:27.165
One, Mike Flynn,
is a registered Democrat.

703
00:39:28.634 --> 00:39:31.570
I went into the White House
as a-- as a Democrat, right,

704
00:39:31.770 --> 00:39:33.338
because I didn't give
a shit about the politics.

705
00:39:33.505 --> 00:39:35.841
What I cared about
was our country.

706
00:39:36.542 --> 00:39:39.010
So I get a phone call, you know,
from Trump, you know,

707
00:39:39.177 --> 00:39:40.646
"How you doing, Donald,
what's going on?"

708
00:39:40.812 --> 00:39:42.748
He goes, "Well, you know,
you've seen everything."

709
00:39:42.948 --> 00:39:45.183
He goes, "I'm not gonna
go with you as,

710
00:39:45.350 --> 00:39:47.586
as the vice president,"
and he, and he kind of,

711
00:39:47.786 --> 00:39:49.855
you know,
flippantly jokes, says,

712
00:39:50.021 --> 00:39:53.224
"In another time, you know,
maybe being a Democrat

713
00:39:53.391 --> 00:39:55.193
would be a good thing, but,"
he goes, "but it's, you know,

714
00:39:55.360 --> 00:39:56.528
it's not going
to work out this time."

715
00:39:56.695 --> 00:39:58.029
And I said, "No problem.

716
00:39:58.196 --> 00:40:00.365
I'm, I'm, you know,
I'm here to help.

717
00:40:00.532 --> 00:40:02.233
However I can,
you know, help out."

718
00:40:02.400 --> 00:40:05.170
And, and he told me
he was going to Indiana

719
00:40:05.336 --> 00:40:07.272
and Mike Pence was
going to be his-- his choice.

720
00:40:07.473 --> 00:40:11.042
<i>The next vice president
of the United States,</i>

721
00:40:11.242 --> 00:40:13.011
<i>Governor Mike Pence.</i>

722
00:40:13.211 --> 00:40:16.181
<i>Thank you, everybody,
thank you.</i>

723
00:40:16.381 --> 00:40:17.883
<i>All these
other sycophants</i>

724
00:40:18.083 --> 00:40:20.318
<i>and all these people
that are consultants</i>

725
00:40:20.519 --> 00:40:22.187
<i>and, and part of the campaign,
they're, like, getting paid.</i>

726
00:40:22.353 --> 00:40:23.855
They're on a payroll,
big payroll.

727
00:40:24.022 --> 00:40:25.423
I never took a dime, not a dime.

728
00:40:25.591 --> 00:40:27.926
I didn't get paid a cent.

729
00:40:28.093 --> 00:40:30.729
I did that because that's what
I felt like was my--

730
00:40:30.929 --> 00:40:33.364
<i>my, like, responsibility.</i>

731
00:40:36.334 --> 00:40:37.803
<i>They spied
on my campaign.</i>

732
00:40:38.003 --> 00:40:39.471
<i>There's
no evidence of that.</i>

733
00:40:39.705 --> 00:40:41.673
<i>Of course there is.
No.</i>

734
00:40:41.873 --> 00:40:43.374
<i>Leslie,
they spied on my campaign--
Sir...</i>

735
00:40:43.575 --> 00:40:44.976
<i>And then they got caught.</i>

736
00:40:45.176 --> 00:40:47.445
The government,
the federal government,

737
00:40:47.613 --> 00:40:49.280
the United States
intelligence community,

738
00:40:49.447 --> 00:40:51.717
elements within it,

739
00:40:51.883 --> 00:40:54.586
the most senior
law enforcement organization

740
00:40:54.753 --> 00:40:56.722
in the country, the FBI,

741
00:40:56.888 --> 00:40:59.157
was spying
on a presidential campaign.

742
00:40:59.357 --> 00:41:00.826
We didn't know it.

743
00:41:01.026 --> 00:41:02.561
<i>We can't put on things
we can't verify.</i>

744
00:41:02.761 --> 00:41:04.563
<i>Leslie,
they spied on my campaign.</i>

745
00:41:04.763 --> 00:41:06.364
<i>- Well, we can't verify that.
- It's been totally verified.</i>

746
00:41:06.598 --> 00:41:08.066
<i>No.</i>

747
00:41:08.266 --> 00:41:10.035
<i>Donald J. Trump
will become</i>

748
00:41:10.235 --> 00:41:13.038
<i>the 45th president
of the United States,</i>

749
00:41:13.238 --> 00:41:15.273
<i>defeating Hillary Clinton
in a campaign</i>

750
00:41:15.473 --> 00:41:19.410
<i>unlike anything we've seen
in our lifetime.</i>

751
00:41:19.578 --> 00:41:20.746
And I'd be lying if I--

752
00:41:20.912 --> 00:41:23.281
if I didn't admit that,
like, you know,

753
00:41:23.481 --> 00:41:26.251
<i>I, I didn't really think
Trump was gonna win either.</i>

754
00:41:26.451 --> 00:41:29.087
<i>But then he got elected.</i>

755
00:41:29.287 --> 00:41:31.089
<i>As I said last night,</i>

756
00:41:31.289 --> 00:41:34.560
<i>my number one priority
in the coming two months</i>

757
00:41:34.760 --> 00:41:38.964
<i>is to try to facilitate
a transition</i>

758
00:41:39.164 --> 00:41:41.967
<i>that ensures our president-
elect is successful.</i>

759
00:41:42.167 --> 00:41:45.470
<i>Obama talks
to Trump about two people.</i>

760
00:41:45.637 --> 00:41:49.975
Threats, apparently,
to him, certainly to,

761
00:41:50.141 --> 00:41:52.110
at least one
to the United States,

762
00:41:52.277 --> 00:41:54.546
and one of them was Kim Jong Un,

763
00:41:54.746 --> 00:41:57.649
the dictator
over in North Korea,

764
00:41:57.816 --> 00:42:01.152
and the other was
General Mike Flynn.

765
00:42:01.953 --> 00:42:04.890
You know, the one thing
Obama tells Trump is,

766
00:42:05.090 --> 00:42:07.893
don't hire,
don't hire General Flynn.

767
00:42:08.093 --> 00:42:10.428
I mean, you can't
make this stuff up.

768
00:42:10.629 --> 00:42:13.398
<i>So I go
upstairs to Trump's office,</i>

769
00:42:13.599 --> 00:42:15.533
<i>and he started telling me
about this conversation</i>

770
00:42:15.701 --> 00:42:18.570
that he had had with--
with Barack Obama.

771
00:42:18.770 --> 00:42:20.138
And I said, "Really?"

772
00:42:20.305 --> 00:42:21.539
And he goes,
"What do you think about that?"

773
00:42:21.707 --> 00:42:22.974
And I said, "You know something?

774
00:42:23.141 --> 00:42:25.677
I've never met the guy."
Never met him.

775
00:42:25.844 --> 00:42:27.378
Never met Barack Obama.

776
00:42:27.545 --> 00:42:29.180
Although he picked me twice
for two key jobs.

777
00:42:29.347 --> 00:42:32.017
I said, "I never had
the opportunity to meet the guy,

778
00:42:32.183 --> 00:42:33.551
so why-- why he would say
something like that,

779
00:42:33.719 --> 00:42:35.353
I have no idea."

780
00:42:35.520 --> 00:42:36.822
And he goes,
"Yeah, neither do I."

781
00:42:36.988 --> 00:42:39.257
And he goes,
"I don't trust the guy."

782
00:42:45.163 --> 00:42:47.332
<i>I stood up for him,
I stood up with him.</i>

783
00:42:47.532 --> 00:42:49.000
<i>We won.</i>

784
00:42:49.200 --> 00:42:51.036
<i>And he turns around and goes,</i>

785
00:42:51.236 --> 00:42:53.138
<i>"Want you to come in and be
my National Security Adviser."</i>

786
00:42:53.338 --> 00:42:55.707
<i>That's a really difficult
question to say no to.</i>

787
00:42:59.177 --> 00:43:01.012
<i>So I said yes.</i>

788
00:43:01.212 --> 00:43:04.315
<i>We shook hands, we took a--
took some photos,</i>

789
00:43:04.515 --> 00:43:08.386
<i>we put out a press release
about it,</i>

790
00:43:08.586 --> 00:43:11.189
<i>and it just seemed like
all hell broke loose.</i>

791
00:43:11.389 --> 00:43:13.725
<i>I mean, it just really seemed
like all hell broke loose.</i>

792
00:43:13.892 --> 00:43:15.593
There's going to be

793
00:43:15.761 --> 00:43:19.030
a complete cleansing
of the fraud, waste, and abuse,

794
00:43:19.230 --> 00:43:20.966
<i>because there was indications
that he was going to do</i>

795
00:43:21.166 --> 00:43:23.835
<i>a look and audit into
the National Security System</i>

796
00:43:24.035 --> 00:43:25.837
<i>to root out the rot,</i>

797
00:43:26.037 --> 00:43:28.740
<i>but not just
in one little agency.</i>

798
00:43:28.907 --> 00:43:30.709
The National Security Advisor

799
00:43:30.876 --> 00:43:33.879
is essentially above
the Intelligence Community,

800
00:43:34.045 --> 00:43:36.147
the Department of Defense,

801
00:43:36.347 --> 00:43:38.383
and the Foreign Policy
Community,

802
00:43:38.549 --> 00:43:40.618
the State Department.

803
00:43:40.786 --> 00:43:44.422
So they have purview over
all those three kind of areas

804
00:43:44.589 --> 00:43:48.459
within our entire
national security,

805
00:43:48.626 --> 00:43:52.130
foreign policy-making community.

806
00:43:52.297 --> 00:43:54.265
That's big.

807
00:43:54.432 --> 00:43:56.835
I didn't run the Defense
Intelligence Agency.

808
00:43:57.035 --> 00:43:59.805
But if a guy stands up
who did, and says,

809
00:43:59.971 --> 00:44:02.407
"Well, actually, I sort of--
I sort of know a lot about this

810
00:44:02.573 --> 00:44:05.243
because I ran the Defense
Intelligence Agency,"

811
00:44:05.410 --> 00:44:07.746
that's a voice
with weight and authority.

812
00:44:07.913 --> 00:44:10.181
That is a massive threat
to them.

813
00:44:11.382 --> 00:44:13.184
<i>Probably one of
the most powerful positions</i>

814
00:44:13.384 --> 00:44:16.454
<i>in the entirety
of the government.</i>

815
00:44:17.055 --> 00:44:21.126
Because you are a close personal
advisor on a daily basis.

816
00:44:21.292 --> 00:44:23.161
You continue to travel
with the president, you know,

817
00:44:23.328 --> 00:44:26.732
you are there in all of
the critical meetings,

818
00:44:26.932 --> 00:44:29.634
<i>all the critical decisions
for the country.</i>

819
00:44:29.835 --> 00:44:31.837
<i>You know,
I was incredibly honored.</i>

820
00:44:32.003 --> 00:44:35.774
I felt, I felt
very well prepared.

821
00:44:35.941 --> 00:44:41.713
Um, and I was brutally,
brutally attacked.

822
00:44:42.814 --> 00:44:46.284
The bureaucracy
targeted those of us

823
00:44:46.451 --> 00:44:48.153
who supported
the president's mission

824
00:44:48.319 --> 00:44:50.221
of making
the federal bureaucracy

825
00:44:50.421 --> 00:44:51.890
accountable
to the American people.

826
00:44:52.090 --> 00:44:53.458
From the outcome of the election

827
00:44:53.624 --> 00:44:56.527
until the Inauguration Day,
there is a,

828
00:44:56.694 --> 00:44:59.697
there is an entire
operation ongoing

829
00:44:59.865 --> 00:45:02.333
that the government
actually plans for.

830
00:45:02.500 --> 00:45:04.169
But-- but now,
it was a bit different.

831
00:45:04.335 --> 00:45:07.672
The-- the transition
that we had,

832
00:45:07.873 --> 00:45:12.443
<i>it was like we were at war,
and it was being made so hard</i>

833
00:45:12.643 --> 00:45:15.747
<i>by elements
within our own government.</i>

834
00:45:19.851 --> 00:45:22.253
<i>So this is now
the Christmas holidays.</i>

835
00:45:22.453 --> 00:45:24.189
My wife Lori and I said,

836
00:45:24.355 --> 00:45:26.324
before I go back
into the White House,

837
00:45:26.491 --> 00:45:28.760
let's go take one last vacation.

838
00:45:28.960 --> 00:45:31.029
And so we decided we're gonna go
down to the Dominican Republic.

839
00:45:31.196 --> 00:45:33.564
We went down there
for basically a short week,

840
00:45:33.731 --> 00:45:35.834
and I ended up having to
shorten it because of

841
00:45:36.001 --> 00:45:38.837
all of the craziness
that was happening up in DC.

842
00:45:39.037 --> 00:45:40.505
<i>It's an unprecedented strike;</i>

843
00:45:40.705 --> 00:45:42.707
<i>the White House
punishing Russia,</i>

844
00:45:42.908 --> 00:45:45.143
<i>in part for interfering
in the US election.</i>

845
00:45:45.343 --> 00:45:46.978
<i>The US is ordering</i>

846
00:45:47.178 --> 00:45:49.180
<i>35 Russian intelligence
operatives</i>

847
00:45:49.380 --> 00:45:52.217
<i>and their families
in California
and Washington D.C.</i>

848
00:45:52.417 --> 00:45:54.019
<i>out of the country.</i>

849
00:45:54.185 --> 00:45:56.955
So a couple of
different phone calls,

850
00:45:57.155 --> 00:46:00.859
but one of whom was with
Ambassador Kislyak, right,

851
00:46:01.026 --> 00:46:03.561
the very famous
Russian ambassador.

852
00:46:03.728 --> 00:46:06.531
I probably made him more,
more famous, right?

853
00:46:06.697 --> 00:46:08.666
Amba-- you know,
Ambassador Kislyak,

854
00:46:08.867 --> 00:46:10.568
<i>he's just like,
he looks like a grandfather</i>

855
00:46:10.768 --> 00:46:14.272
<i>who smokes too many cigars
and probably,</i>

856
00:46:14.439 --> 00:46:16.574
you know, sniffs a little bit
too much whiskey, right?

857
00:46:16.774 --> 00:46:19.744
<i>Tonight, a Kremlin spokesman
is accusing President Obama</i>

858
00:46:19.945 --> 00:46:22.147
<i>of trying to spoil
U.S.-Russian relations.</i>

859
00:46:22.347 --> 00:46:24.883
Look, Russia.

860
00:46:25.050 --> 00:46:28.119
I know you're going to
have to do something.

861
00:46:28.286 --> 00:46:30.588
I don't appreciate
what happened.

862
00:46:30.755 --> 00:46:34.059
So I'm being honest with them.
Because it wasn't our call,

863
00:46:34.225 --> 00:46:36.594
it was the current
administration's call.

864
00:46:36.794 --> 00:46:39.197
<i>I don't appreciate
what happened, but--</i>

865
00:46:39.397 --> 00:46:43.201
<i>and I know that you're going to
have to take some measures,</i>

866
00:46:43.401 --> 00:46:44.435
<i>but let's not have
a tit-for-tat,</i>

867
00:46:44.635 --> 00:46:46.271
<i>because we don't want to--</i>

868
00:46:46.471 --> 00:46:48.073
<i>we don't want to lose our minds
over this and-- and--</i>

869
00:46:48.239 --> 00:46:50.475
and cause some greater--
some greater outcome,

870
00:46:50.641 --> 00:46:52.177
like going to war.

871
00:46:52.377 --> 00:46:55.280
But I get a phone call
a couple of days later,

872
00:46:55.446 --> 00:46:57.682
and he says, "Message received."

873
00:46:57.883 --> 00:47:00.451
They're not going to take
any extreme action.

874
00:47:00.618 --> 00:47:03.688
Talk about, you know,
being able to settle down

875
00:47:03.889 --> 00:47:06.524
something that could have
gotten vastly worse.

876
00:47:06.724 --> 00:47:09.627
Why do we have
a State Department?

877
00:47:09.794 --> 00:47:12.297
Why do we have all these
intelligence agencies?

878
00:47:12.463 --> 00:47:15.500
It's to, you know,
to protect America,

879
00:47:15.666 --> 00:47:17.635
protect American interests,

880
00:47:17.802 --> 00:47:22.640
and to keep dialogue open
between our adversaries,

881
00:47:22.807 --> 00:47:26.111
our allies, anyone in between.

882
00:47:26.277 --> 00:47:29.314
So the whole idea
that General Flynn

883
00:47:29.480 --> 00:47:32.717
was doing something wrong
was ridiculous.

884
00:47:32.918 --> 00:47:36.187
He was doing exactly what
he should have been doing
at the time.

885
00:47:36.354 --> 00:47:38.556
He was the incoming
National Security Advisor.

886
00:47:38.756 --> 00:47:42.060
<i>His job, his role,
was to help to coordinate</i>

887
00:47:42.260 --> 00:47:44.930
<i>that whole strategy
across all of government</i>

888
00:47:45.130 --> 00:47:48.566
<i>to try to do what?
Prevent war.</i>

889
00:47:48.766 --> 00:47:55.506
<i>January 20, 2017,
will be remembered as the day</i>

890
00:47:55.706 --> 00:48:01.179
<i>the people became the rulers
of this nation again.</i>

891
00:48:01.379 --> 00:48:02.680
<i>We were ready for change</i>

892
00:48:02.880 --> 00:48:04.682
<i>and we needed to
get things moving.</i>

893
00:48:04.882 --> 00:48:07.052
<i>One of the things
I was looking to do was to</i>

894
00:48:07.218 --> 00:48:11.689
dig in and take a hard look
at some of the programs

895
00:48:11.856 --> 00:48:16.361
that the U.S. intelligence
community was involved in

896
00:48:16.527 --> 00:48:22.000
that I felt
were useless, costly,

897
00:48:22.167 --> 00:48:24.369
and, uh, and corrupt.

898
00:48:24.535 --> 00:48:28.373
And in fact, I sat through
a presentation with

899
00:48:28.539 --> 00:48:31.109
the incoming
vice president, Mike Pence,

900
00:48:31.309 --> 00:48:34.412
in the, in the transition
headquarters.

901
00:48:34.579 --> 00:48:37.382
As we're being presented it,
I started asking questions like,

902
00:48:37.548 --> 00:48:41.019
"Well, okay, this program
that's been going on

903
00:48:41.186 --> 00:48:44.289
for a long time,
what has it accomplished?"

904
00:48:44.489 --> 00:48:45.690
"Oh, we're gonna have to..."

905
00:48:45.856 --> 00:48:47.692
I mean, then you get this.

906
00:48:47.858 --> 00:48:51.262
Again, these are senior guys.
These are like the top,

907
00:48:51.429 --> 00:48:53.698
top people in the CIA.

908
00:48:53.864 --> 00:48:55.300
They're like this,
and they're like,

909
00:48:55.500 --> 00:48:57.302
"Well, we're gonna
have to come back

910
00:48:57.502 --> 00:48:59.637
and we're gonna have to give you
a separate briefing on that."

911
00:48:59.837 --> 00:49:03.574
I ended up calling
to have that briefing again.

912
00:49:03.741 --> 00:49:06.144
The next time
I called for it was--

913
00:49:06.344 --> 00:49:09.447
it was in the first week
I was there, and it was me

914
00:49:09.614 --> 00:49:13.218
as the National Security Advisor
now inside the White House.

915
00:49:13.384 --> 00:49:15.987
I got the same briefing,
but this time they sent

916
00:49:16.187 --> 00:49:17.989
a whole bunch more people, right?

917
00:49:18.189 --> 00:49:19.724
Because like, they knew,

918
00:49:19.890 --> 00:49:22.727
because now I'm starting to,
to dig in.

919
00:49:28.366 --> 00:49:31.436
<i>Thousands and thousands
of years ago,</i>

920
00:49:31.636 --> 00:49:36.074
<i>guys like Sun Tzu,
famous military theoretician,</i>

921
00:49:36.241 --> 00:49:38.076
studied him.

922
00:49:38.243 --> 00:49:41.512
Everybody that's ever served
in the military at some level,

923
00:49:41.712 --> 00:49:43.348
stayed in long enough,
has-- has...

924
00:49:43.548 --> 00:49:44.682
Hell, even a lot of
people in business

925
00:49:44.882 --> 00:49:47.985
study Sun Tzu's <i>Art of War.</i>

926
00:49:48.153 --> 00:49:51.022
Well, what did Sun Tzu
say about war?

927
00:49:51.222 --> 00:49:53.458
War is deception.

928
00:49:55.293 --> 00:49:58.296
<i>A war can be a war
in the narratives,</i>

929
00:49:58.963 --> 00:50:02.067
<i>in how information is deployed</i>

930
00:50:02.767 --> 00:50:06.804
<i>in order to manipulate
the belief system of people.</i>

931
00:50:08.639 --> 00:50:12.277
And so now, instead of,
you know,

932
00:50:12.443 --> 00:50:14.279
putting a bullet
through somebody's head,

933
00:50:14.445 --> 00:50:18.616
you assassinate them
by narrative.

934
00:50:18.783 --> 00:50:21.986
And for a guy by the--
by the name of Sun Tzu,

935
00:50:22.153 --> 00:50:25.356
who wrote about
all wars are deception

936
00:50:25.523 --> 00:50:27.325
thousands of years ago, right?

937
00:50:28.459 --> 00:50:30.561
Nothing's changed.

938
00:50:30.761 --> 00:50:34.132
The intelligence agencies are

939
00:50:35.100 --> 00:50:38.803
working with the legacy media

940
00:50:38.969 --> 00:50:41.306
to shape public perception
of world events.

941
00:50:41.472 --> 00:50:44.008
That is not speculation.

942
00:50:44.175 --> 00:50:46.010
I'm not some outsider
who's guessing at this

943
00:50:46.177 --> 00:50:47.478
because they read about it
on the internet.

944
00:50:47.645 --> 00:50:49.013
I've spent my whole life
working,

945
00:50:49.180 --> 00:50:50.648
my father worked at ABC News

946
00:50:50.815 --> 00:50:52.717
before going to work
for the government;

947
00:50:52.883 --> 00:50:54.385
you know, engaged
in the Cold War.

948
00:50:54.552 --> 00:50:57.522
So I've seen both sides
of this my whole life,

949
00:50:57.688 --> 00:50:59.324
for 53 years.

950
00:50:59.490 --> 00:51:03.228
So I can say
with authority and certainty

951
00:51:03.394 --> 00:51:07.698
that the intel agencies shape
news coverage of world events.

952
00:51:07.865 --> 00:51:09.600
And the more significant
the world event,

953
00:51:09.800 --> 00:51:13.704
the more meaningful it is,
the higher the consequences are,

954
00:51:13.871 --> 00:51:15.440
the more aggressively
they shape it.

955
00:51:15.640 --> 00:51:18.376
Because the CIA's,
they're masters at propaganda,

956
00:51:18.543 --> 00:51:20.911
they're masters at,
at, at what's called

957
00:51:21.078 --> 00:51:24.849
covert influence,
covert operations. Right?

958
00:51:25.015 --> 00:51:28.419
Hollywood, the media.

959
00:51:28.586 --> 00:51:32.089
You're not
a conspiracy theorist.

960
00:51:32.257 --> 00:51:35.626
You're an observer
of verifiable reality

961
00:51:35.826 --> 00:51:39.864
if you state factually,
the news,

962
00:51:40.030 --> 00:51:41.299
organizations of record--

963
00:51:41.499 --> 00:51:42.967
Washington Post
and New York Times--

964
00:51:43.168 --> 00:51:45.403
are working with
the intel agencies

965
00:51:45.570 --> 00:51:47.372
to lie to the public

966
00:51:47.538 --> 00:51:49.807
and to hide relevant information
from the public. That is a fact.

967
00:51:50.007 --> 00:51:51.376
Eisenhower
had his own imperfections,

968
00:51:51.542 --> 00:51:53.244
JFK had his own imperfections,

969
00:51:53.411 --> 00:51:56.447
but they, you know,
but they understood

970
00:51:56.614 --> 00:51:58.583
that there was
something not right.

971
00:51:58.749 --> 00:52:00.918
And Eisenhower
was really the first

972
00:52:01.085 --> 00:52:03.188
in a very somber warning.

973
00:52:03.388 --> 00:52:07.392
<i>In the councils of government,
we must guard against</i>

974
00:52:07.592 --> 00:52:09.694
<i>the acquisition
of unwarranted influence,</i>

975
00:52:09.894 --> 00:52:11.229
<i>whether sought or unsought,</i>

976
00:52:11.429 --> 00:52:14.899
<i>by the military-industrial
complex.</i>

977
00:52:15.065 --> 00:52:16.567
He used this term

978
00:52:16.734 --> 00:52:18.403
"the military-industrial
complex."

979
00:52:18.569 --> 00:52:21.506
And back then,
in Eisenhower's era,

980
00:52:21.706 --> 00:52:24.342
it was not very well developed.

981
00:52:24.542 --> 00:52:28.646
Uh, now we have a
services complex as well.

982
00:52:28.813 --> 00:52:32.683
And it seems that there are
too many of our leaders

983
00:52:32.883 --> 00:52:36.521
in the federal government,
in the Department of Defense,

984
00:52:36.721 --> 00:52:41.192
that really put
the interests of themselves,

985
00:52:41.392 --> 00:52:45.496
their crony contractor friends,
and, and their careers

986
00:52:45.663 --> 00:52:47.632
over the national interest.

987
00:52:47.798 --> 00:52:50.968
Why did a guy
like John F. Kennedy
get assassinated?

988
00:52:51.168 --> 00:52:55.773
<i>He got assassinated because
he called out something</i>

989
00:52:55.973 --> 00:53:01.479
<i>that he knew to be a corrupt
component of the government</i>

990
00:53:01.679 --> 00:53:04.382
<i>that was trying to usurp
his authority</i>

991
00:53:04.582 --> 00:53:06.116
<i>as the duly elected</i>

992
00:53:06.284 --> 00:53:08.719
president of the United States
of America.

993
00:53:08.919 --> 00:53:11.822
I-- I think the assassinations

994
00:53:12.022 --> 00:53:16.794
<i>of the 1960s
are worth reassessing</i>

995
00:53:16.994 --> 00:53:21.332
<i>because they tell you
what the system is capable of.</i>

996
00:53:21.499 --> 00:53:23.033
Not just individuals,

997
00:53:23.200 --> 00:53:26.571
but the system in which
they live, work, and thrive.

998
00:53:26.771 --> 00:53:30.007
The imperative to preserve
that system is so overwhelming

999
00:53:30.641 --> 00:53:32.977
that individual players
in the system

1000
00:53:33.143 --> 00:53:36.247
can be sacrificed
in the name of preserving it.

1001
00:53:36.447 --> 00:53:38.483
Like, you just need to
understand the stakes here.

1002
00:53:38.649 --> 00:53:39.884
So, if you're Flynn
and you're standing up

1003
00:53:40.050 --> 00:53:41.986
and saying, "Wait a second."

1004
00:53:42.152 --> 00:53:44.088
You know, in retrospect,
I think it's fair to,

1005
00:53:44.289 --> 00:53:48.025
to expect that they would
effectively try to kill you.

1006
00:53:48.192 --> 00:53:51.696
You know, maybe not shoot you
in Dealey Plaza,

1007
00:53:51.862 --> 00:53:53.731
but put you in prison,
impoverish your family,

1008
00:53:53.898 --> 00:53:58.035
silence you, dismiss you in
the eyes of most as ridiculous.

1009
00:53:58.202 --> 00:54:01.606
I thought it was
an opportunity to, to take

1010
00:54:01.806 --> 00:54:04.208
a look, a hard look
at organizations,

1011
00:54:04.375 --> 00:54:06.243
one of which I ran.

1012
00:54:06.411 --> 00:54:10.014
And I knew a lot about other
aspects of the security state

1013
00:54:10.180 --> 00:54:11.782
because it's not just
the intelligence community.

1014
00:54:11.982 --> 00:54:13.183
It's the Department of Defense

1015
00:54:13.351 --> 00:54:14.752
and includes
the Department of State,

1016
00:54:14.919 --> 00:54:17.254
includes places like
the White House itself,

1017
00:54:17.422 --> 00:54:19.223
and includes
the Department of Justice,

1018
00:54:19.390 --> 00:54:21.258
includes the FBI.

1019
00:54:21.426 --> 00:54:23.060
And that revolving door
in the intelligence community,

1020
00:54:23.227 --> 00:54:25.863
with social media companies,
with big banks,

1021
00:54:26.030 --> 00:54:27.865
with big corporations,

1022
00:54:28.032 --> 00:54:29.767
has been going on
for years and years and years.

1023
00:54:29.934 --> 00:54:32.236
They recruit people
out of those agencies

1024
00:54:32.403 --> 00:54:33.804
to come work for them.

1025
00:54:34.004 --> 00:54:35.873
It's grotesque.

1026
00:54:36.040 --> 00:54:41.111
I mean, that's when you know,
when you turn on CNN or MSNBC,

1027
00:54:41.278 --> 00:54:43.514
and you see an endless parade

1028
00:54:43.714 --> 00:54:45.182
<i>of former
federal law enforcement</i>

1029
00:54:45.383 --> 00:54:47.852
<i>or federal intelligence
officials paid,</i>

1030
00:54:48.052 --> 00:54:50.855
<i>coming on the air
to analyze politics,</i>

1031
00:54:51.055 --> 00:54:52.890
<i>then you know
that this organization</i>

1032
00:54:53.090 --> 00:54:54.825
<i>has been captured
by those agencies.</i>

1033
00:54:55.360 --> 00:54:58.128
I mean, these are not just
former government employees;

1034
00:54:58.295 --> 00:55:00.431
these are people with
active security clearances.

1035
00:55:00.631 --> 00:55:03.200
<i>Still, they retain
their security clearances.</i>

1036
00:55:03.401 --> 00:55:05.603
<i>So they are
in continuous communication</i>

1037
00:55:05.803 --> 00:55:07.772
<i>with their former colleagues
at these agencies,</i>

1038
00:55:07.972 --> 00:55:09.974
<i>because it's legal, because
they have the clearance.</i>

1039
00:55:10.140 --> 00:55:13.511
And so, they are acting
effectively as spokesmen

1040
00:55:13.711 --> 00:55:15.112
for these federal agencies,

1041
00:55:15.279 --> 00:55:17.682
and they're on the air
as news analysts.

1042
00:55:17.882 --> 00:55:22.353
I cannot think of
a more perverse system.

1043
00:55:22.553 --> 00:55:24.121
I think, I think
there were conversations

1044
00:55:24.321 --> 00:55:26.391
<i>and messages between
Peter Strzok and someone</i>

1045
00:55:26.591 --> 00:55:28.058
<i>inside of the office of</i>

1046
00:55:28.258 --> 00:55:29.527
<i>the Vice President
of the United States.</i>

1047
00:55:32.630 --> 00:55:37.502
In retrospect,
it's pretty obvious to me

1048
00:55:37.668 --> 00:55:43.273
that Mike Pence was brought in
and presented to Donald Trump,

1049
00:55:43.474 --> 00:55:44.909
<i>who probably didn't know,
wouldn't know Mike Pence</i>

1050
00:55:45.109 --> 00:55:47.277
<i>if he got in the shower
with him.</i>

1051
00:55:47.478 --> 00:55:49.213
<i>He didn't really know
that Mike Pence
was the governor of Indiana.</i>

1052
00:55:49.414 --> 00:55:53.984
Pence is a career politician,
Trump is a casino promoter;

1053
00:55:54.151 --> 00:55:56.120
like, they haven't had
a lot of overlap in their lives.

1054
00:55:56.286 --> 00:55:58.322
How did he wind up
getting chosen vice president?

1055
00:55:58.523 --> 00:56:01.726
<i>And I think it's
very obviously an effort</i>

1056
00:56:01.926 --> 00:56:05.896
by Republicans in Washington,
permanent Washington,

1057
00:56:06.096 --> 00:56:08.833
to put some kind of moderating
force right next to Trump.

1058
00:56:08.999 --> 00:56:11.335
"You know, you need him
to win the evangelicals."

1059
00:56:11.502 --> 00:56:13.638
That's how they sold him.
"He's an evangelical."

1060
00:56:13.804 --> 00:56:15.906
Trump has no idea
what an evangelical is.

1061
00:56:16.507 --> 00:56:18.042
And so, they tell him,
"You gotta have this guy.

1062
00:56:18.208 --> 00:56:19.977
You can't win without this guy."

1063
00:56:20.144 --> 00:56:22.146
And I'm not saying
Pence is a secret agent,

1064
00:56:22.312 --> 00:56:25.983
but clearly,
and I watched it firsthand,

1065
00:56:26.150 --> 00:56:29.153
Pence believed that his role
was to get Trump,

1066
00:56:29.319 --> 00:56:30.988
to the extent he could,

1067
00:56:31.155 --> 00:56:32.923
to go along with
the conventions of,

1068
00:56:33.123 --> 00:56:35.192
of Washington as it existed
before Trump got there.

1069
00:56:35.359 --> 00:56:37.495
Obviously.

1070
00:56:37.662 --> 00:56:39.263
Again, I'm not calling him
a secret agent.

1071
00:56:39.464 --> 00:56:42.032
But I am saying from day one,

1072
00:56:42.199 --> 00:56:47.705
Pence saw his job
as influencing Trump

1073
00:56:47.872 --> 00:56:49.874
to kind of let things
continue to go

1074
00:56:50.040 --> 00:56:51.609
roughly the way
they were going before.

1075
00:56:51.809 --> 00:56:54.044
That's true.

1076
00:56:54.211 --> 00:56:57.381
I think Pence played an
enormously destructive role.

1077
00:56:57.548 --> 00:57:00.851
I know that the-- I know
that there were people

1078
00:57:01.018 --> 00:57:04.221
in Pence's office
who hated Trump,

1079
00:57:04.388 --> 00:57:05.690
because they told me.

1080
00:57:05.856 --> 00:57:07.792
And if we look at RussiaGate,

1081
00:57:07.992 --> 00:57:10.461
we see different people
operating out of Pence's office

1082
00:57:10.661 --> 00:57:11.962
who are part of RussiaGate.

1083
00:57:12.162 --> 00:57:14.264
But just going by the timeline

1084
00:57:14.431 --> 00:57:17.234
and going by
what we knew happened,

1085
00:57:17.401 --> 00:57:18.469
I'm like, Pence
is making this up.

1086
00:57:18.669 --> 00:57:20.638
<i>Good morning.</i>

1087
00:57:20.838 --> 00:57:23.140
<i>Retired General Michael Flynn
was during the campaign</i>

1088
00:57:23.340 --> 00:57:25.409
<i>and is now one of
the president's top advisors,</i>

1089
00:57:25.610 --> 00:57:27.177
<i>and he has acknowledged</i>

1090
00:57:27.377 --> 00:57:30.014
<i>having contacts with
top Russian officials.</i>

1091
00:57:30.214 --> 00:57:33.383
<i>But over the last several
weeks, investigators led
by the FBI</i>

1092
00:57:33.584 --> 00:57:35.185
<i>have been taking a closer look</i>

1093
00:57:35.385 --> 00:57:37.021
<i>at his calls
to the Russian ambassador.</i>

1094
00:57:37.221 --> 00:57:39.223
<i>We had
the Japanese delegation</i>

1095
00:57:39.423 --> 00:57:42.326
<i>down at Mar-a-Lago
for very serious meetings.</i>

1096
00:57:42.527 --> 00:57:45.796
<i>And-- and while, all while
that was going on that weekend,</i>

1097
00:57:46.731 --> 00:57:50.267
<i>Kim Jong Un, over in Korea,
starts firing some missiles.</i>

1098
00:57:50.434 --> 00:57:53.771
This is the first time
that the Trump administration

1099
00:57:53.938 --> 00:57:57.908
is going to be tested on,
on how we respond to that.

1100
00:57:58.809 --> 00:58:01.011
<i>And by the way,</i>

1101
00:58:01.211 --> 00:58:03.447
<i>Rocket Man should have been
handled a long time ago.</i>

1102
00:58:05.716 --> 00:58:06.951
<i>They were doing it
because Abe of Japan</i>

1103
00:58:07.618 --> 00:58:09.754
<i>is visiting President Trump
that weekend.</i>

1104
00:58:12.990 --> 00:58:18.328
I-- I took Abe and Trump
into a, a skiff,

1105
00:58:18.495 --> 00:58:21.431
a secure facility
that we set up at Mar-a-Lago.

1106
00:58:21.599 --> 00:58:23.768
I took those two in there

1107
00:58:23.934 --> 00:58:25.302
and briefed them
on what was happening,

1108
00:58:25.469 --> 00:58:26.837
and I showed them,
I showed them all the,

1109
00:58:27.004 --> 00:58:28.873
all the intelligence
that we had,

1110
00:58:29.073 --> 00:58:30.741
<i>some photographs of
the missiles, all this stuff.</i>

1111
00:58:30.941 --> 00:58:32.610
<i>I went-- took them through
the whole thing like I,</i>

1112
00:58:32.777 --> 00:58:35.279
like I'd briefed millions
of other intelligence briefings

1113
00:58:35.445 --> 00:58:36.513
in the past.
I laid it out in front of them.

1114
00:58:36.681 --> 00:58:39.149
The next day, we st--

1115
00:58:39.316 --> 00:58:42.486
we had more, more talks
with the Japanese

1116
00:58:42.653 --> 00:58:44.521
and we're still,
you know, reeling,

1117
00:58:44.689 --> 00:58:47.491
and the media is going crazy
about all this stuff.

1118
00:58:47.658 --> 00:58:51.028
I took like 30 minutes
to go back over to my room

1119
00:58:51.195 --> 00:58:53.197
because we're going to get back
on Air Force One.

1120
00:58:53.363 --> 00:58:56.366
Packing my bags,
and I get a phone call
and it's Reince Priebus.

1121
00:58:56.533 --> 00:58:58.302
I said, "What can I do?
You know, how can I help?"

1122
00:58:58.468 --> 00:59:03.674
And Reince Priebus tells me that
I'm in the Situation Room

1123
00:59:03.841 --> 00:59:07.144
with Vice President Pence,

1124
00:59:07.344 --> 00:59:08.746
<i>Deputy Director of the FBI
McCabe,</i>

1125
00:59:09.379 --> 00:59:11.415
<i>and Deputy Attorney General</i>

1126
00:59:11.616 --> 00:59:14.151
<i>of the Department of Justice,
Sally Yates.</i>

1127
00:59:14.318 --> 00:59:16.320
And they just briefed us.

1128
00:59:16.486 --> 00:59:20.057
They just showed us a document

1129
00:59:20.224 --> 00:59:23.994
that you clearly talked
about sanctions.

1130
00:59:24.194 --> 00:59:26.030
<i>This is one of
the surreal moments,</i>

1131
00:59:26.230 --> 00:59:27.531
<i>it's like things
you never forget,</i>

1132
00:59:27.698 --> 00:59:30.034
because it was such a seminal

1133
00:59:30.200 --> 00:59:33.170
and significant
emotional event for me.

1134
00:59:33.337 --> 00:59:34.939
I said, "So what are you,
what are you telling me?"

1135
00:59:35.139 --> 00:59:38.042
"Well, you know,
the vice president is upset,

1136
00:59:38.208 --> 00:59:40.778
and we're gonna, you know,
we're, we're gonna have to,

1137
00:59:40.978 --> 00:59:42.379
you know, we're gonna be
talking to you

1138
00:59:42.546 --> 00:59:43.948
when you get back."

1139
00:59:44.148 --> 00:59:45.783
Like I'm a,
I'm a fucking schoolchild.

1140
00:59:45.983 --> 00:59:49.119
<i>I show up to the White House
the next day.</i>

1141
00:59:49.319 --> 00:59:53.057
<i>All kinds of--
now there's all kinds of rumors</i>

1142
00:59:53.257 --> 00:59:56.393
<i>about Flynn's, you know, going
to be fired,</i> resign, you know.

1143
00:59:56.593 --> 00:59:57.628
<i>It's all flying
all over the place.</i>

1144
00:59:57.828 --> 01:00:00.264
<i>So it's all leaked.</i>

1145
01:00:00.430 --> 01:00:03.367
The Situation Room
is a very secure facility.

1146
01:00:03.533 --> 01:00:05.703
We're talking about people
that should know better.

1147
01:00:05.870 --> 01:00:07.537
I mean,
if it just those four people

1148
01:00:07.705 --> 01:00:09.974
that were in that room,
and me on that conversation.

1149
01:00:10.174 --> 01:00:14.812
<i>That day, Reince comes
into my office and says,</i>

1150
01:00:15.012 --> 01:00:17.915
<i>"The president wants you to--
he's gonna want you to resign."</i>

1151
01:00:18.082 --> 01:00:20.050
And I looked at him
and I was like, "Really?"

1152
01:00:20.217 --> 01:00:23.620
I said, "Did he say that?

1153
01:00:23.788 --> 01:00:25.489
Is that coming from you
or is that coming from him?"

1154
01:00:25.690 --> 01:00:26.957
And he said, "Well,
that's coming from him."

1155
01:00:27.124 --> 01:00:28.592
And I said, "Okay."

1156
01:00:28.759 --> 01:00:30.728
I go, "Well, here's what
I want you to do, Reince.

1157
01:00:30.895 --> 01:00:32.730
I want you to go
let the president know

1158
01:00:32.897 --> 01:00:35.232
that I want to
hear it from him."

1159
01:00:35.900 --> 01:00:39.236
And he was like,
he kind of like, and he goes,

1160
01:00:39.403 --> 01:00:41.839
"You probably should put
together a resignation letter."

1161
01:00:42.039 --> 01:00:44.108
When he called to tell me
that he was resigning, you know,

1162
01:00:44.274 --> 01:00:46.110
he told me that
"I'm going to resign tonight."

1163
01:00:46.276 --> 01:00:48.245
And I was like,
"Oh, my God, really?"

1164
01:00:48.412 --> 01:00:51.415
And it was just sort of surreal.

1165
01:00:51.581 --> 01:00:53.283
And he said, "Yeah."

1166
01:00:53.450 --> 01:00:58.422
He goes, "I'm going to go see
the president right now."

1167
01:00:58.588 --> 01:01:00.657
I was like, "Okay. I'll be here
when you get home."

1168
01:01:03.928 --> 01:01:06.864
<i>Who was in
the meeting was Reince Priebus,</i>

1169
01:01:07.064 --> 01:01:10.400
<i>Vice President Pence,
Steve Bannon,</i>

1170
01:01:10.600 --> 01:01:12.636
<i>and Jared Kushner
and the president.</i>

1171
01:01:12.837 --> 01:01:14.972
<i>And president, you know,
reads the letter.</i>

1172
01:01:15.172 --> 01:01:17.107
<i>H-- he's like, I--
I could tell</i>

1173
01:01:17.307 --> 01:01:19.309
<i>that he was--
he was visibly upset,</i>

1174
01:01:19.476 --> 01:01:20.878
like, but not in an angry way.

1175
01:01:21.078 --> 01:01:23.480
He was like, just upset
about the whole thing

1176
01:01:23.647 --> 01:01:26.717
because he knew how hard
that I had worked my ass off

1177
01:01:26.917 --> 01:01:29.519
for him to win the presidency.

1178
01:01:29.686 --> 01:01:31.455
And I had-- you know,
and I just wasn't

1179
01:01:31.621 --> 01:01:34.058
a guy that--
that comes across as, you know,

1180
01:01:34.258 --> 01:01:36.493
a bullshitter, you know,
or a liar. Right?

1181
01:01:36.660 --> 01:01:38.362
He said, "You know..."

1182
01:01:38.528 --> 01:01:39.730
He kind of looked
around the room, goes,

1183
01:01:39.930 --> 01:01:41.465
you know, "We okay with this?"

1184
01:01:41.631 --> 01:01:45.169
And looking back,
it could have been,

1185
01:01:45.335 --> 01:01:47.537
a couple of things
could have happened.

1186
01:01:47.704 --> 01:01:48.839
He could have said,

1187
01:01:49.006 --> 01:01:50.841
"You know what,
this is bullshit.

1188
01:01:51.008 --> 01:01:52.509
You two guys kiss and make up,"

1189
01:01:53.443 --> 01:01:54.979
because I had already apologized
to the vice president

1190
01:01:55.179 --> 01:01:56.914
<i>about whatever it was
that he felt like</i>

1191
01:01:57.114 --> 01:01:58.248
<i>I had misled him on.</i>

1192
01:01:58.448 --> 01:02:00.650
<i>I had already apologized
to him.</i>

1193
01:02:01.151 --> 01:02:02.920
There was no, you know, hey,
let's kiss and make up.

1194
01:02:03.120 --> 01:02:05.389
We got a country to run here.
Nope.

1195
01:02:05.555 --> 01:02:08.058
Vice President Pence
didn't stand there and say,

1196
01:02:08.658 --> 01:02:11.361
you know, you know what,
I-- I can live with this.

1197
01:02:11.528 --> 01:02:13.931
You know, Mike, got it.
I understand that, you know,

1198
01:02:14.131 --> 01:02:15.532
the all the dynamics
of what was happening

1199
01:02:15.699 --> 01:02:17.267
and everybody's busy.

1200
01:02:17.467 --> 01:02:18.936
You know,
we have a country to run.

1201
01:02:19.136 --> 01:02:21.338
Before I left that--
that meeting,

1202
01:02:21.505 --> 01:02:23.974
the president got up, and
I walked up to the side

1203
01:02:24.174 --> 01:02:26.043
<i>because I was kind of
standing at the corner.</i>

1204
01:02:26.243 --> 01:02:27.744
<i>And I walked up,
gave him a hug,</i>

1205
01:02:27.912 --> 01:02:29.746
give him like a,
you know, big man hug.

1206
01:02:29.914 --> 01:02:32.616
And I stepped back
and I said to him,

1207
01:02:32.817 --> 01:02:35.585
"I'm just gonna give you
one warning about one person.

1208
01:02:39.723 --> 01:02:40.958
<i>I'm going to tell you
that the person</i>

1209
01:02:41.158 --> 01:02:42.559
<i>that you need to watch out for</i>

1210
01:02:42.759 --> 01:02:44.194
<i>is the deputy director
of the FBI,</i>

1211
01:02:44.361 --> 01:02:47.031
and his name is Andrew McCabe."

1212
01:02:47.197 --> 01:02:49.233
And I looked the president
dead in the eye.

1213
01:02:49.399 --> 01:02:50.801
And he said, "Okay."

1214
01:02:51.001 --> 01:02:52.937
He didn't really know
who he was.

1215
01:02:53.103 --> 01:02:56.240
Now, obviously,
Reince Priebus knew him,

1216
01:02:56.406 --> 01:02:59.043
and Pence knew him.
They said nothing.

1217
01:02:59.209 --> 01:03:01.078
So whatever they had said
to the president

1218
01:03:01.245 --> 01:03:03.747
prior to me going
in that meeting, you know,

1219
01:03:03.914 --> 01:03:06.984
I could tell
that from my departure,

1220
01:03:07.184 --> 01:03:10.654
you know, my departing,
sort of, you know,

1221
01:03:10.855 --> 01:03:15.559
man-love moment with--
with, uh, with President Trump,

1222
01:03:15.725 --> 01:03:17.461
where I could tell
that he was upset

1223
01:03:17.627 --> 01:03:21.598
that he had to do this
and accept my resignation.

1224
01:03:21.765 --> 01:03:23.934
And maybe he felt like

1225
01:03:24.101 --> 01:03:26.904
if I stepped away
from the White House,

1226
01:03:27.071 --> 01:03:28.939
the whole Russia thing
would go away.

1227
01:03:29.106 --> 01:03:31.741
And that's when it all began.

1228
01:03:31.942 --> 01:03:34.011
<i>The information
was provided by,</i>

1229
01:03:34.211 --> 01:03:36.346
<i>who I don't know, Sally Yates.</i>

1230
01:03:36.546 --> 01:03:40.617
<i>And I was a little surprised
because I said,</i>

1231
01:03:40.817 --> 01:03:43.620
<i>"Doesn't sound like he did
anything wrong there."</i>

1232
01:03:43.820 --> 01:03:46.023
<i>But he did something wrong</i>

1233
01:03:46.223 --> 01:03:48.458
<i>with respect to
the vice president,</i>

1234
01:03:48.658 --> 01:03:50.861
<i>and I thought
that was not acceptable.</i>

1235
01:03:51.061 --> 01:03:56.200
<i>As far, as far as
the actual making the call,</i>

1236
01:03:56.400 --> 01:03:58.568
<i>he was just doing his job.
That was very normal.</i>

1237
01:03:58.768 --> 01:04:00.304
<i>You know, at first,
everybody got excited</i>

1238
01:04:00.504 --> 01:04:01.771
<i>because they thought
he did something wrong.</i>

1239
01:04:01.972 --> 01:04:03.607
<i>After they thought about it,</i>

1240
01:04:03.807 --> 01:04:06.710
<i>it turned out
he was just doing his job.</i>

1241
01:04:06.911 --> 01:04:09.413
<i>So, and I do-- and by the way,
with all of that being said,</i>

1242
01:04:09.613 --> 01:04:11.681
<i>I do think he's a fine man.</i>

1243
01:04:11.848 --> 01:04:16.286
So, Reince Priebus told me
that they had just read

1244
01:04:16.486 --> 01:04:20.657
<i>a document that Yates
and McCabe showed them</i>

1245
01:04:20.857 --> 01:04:23.928
<i>that said I talked about
sanctions.</i>

1246
01:04:24.128 --> 01:04:26.730
<i>And we now know that I never
talked about sanctions.</i>

1247
01:04:26.931 --> 01:04:29.133
<i>There's a transcript of it.
It's public information.</i>

1248
01:04:33.437 --> 01:04:38.008
Okay, it was a,
it was a false document,

1249
01:04:38.175 --> 01:04:39.910
which is really bad

1250
01:04:40.110 --> 01:04:42.712
for two senior government
officials to create.

1251
01:04:42.879 --> 01:04:45.882
And that document
must exist somewhere. Okay?

1252
01:04:46.050 --> 01:04:50.921
Or, the only other
potential answer

1253
01:04:51.121 --> 01:04:56.260
is that Reince Priebus lied
about reading about sanctions.

1254
01:04:56.460 --> 01:04:58.262
I never talked about sanctions.

1255
01:04:58.462 --> 01:05:00.697
In fact, I, I told
the vice president that,

1256
01:05:00.864 --> 01:05:02.899
earlier on.

1257
01:05:03.067 --> 01:05:04.868
I said I didn't talk
about sanctions.

1258
01:05:05.035 --> 01:05:07.671
I told the FBI agents
that came to my office.

1259
01:05:07.871 --> 01:05:08.805
<i>You look at
this White House now</i>

1260
01:05:09.006 --> 01:05:10.474
<i>and it's hard to imagine</i>

1261
01:05:10.674 --> 01:05:11.841
<i>two FBI agents ending up
in the same room.</i>

1262
01:05:12.042 --> 01:05:13.677
<i>How did that happen?</i>

1263
01:05:13.877 --> 01:05:14.878
<i>I sent them.</i>

1264
01:05:17.747 --> 01:05:19.783
<i>Comey said in an interview,</i>

1265
01:05:19.984 --> 01:05:21.885
<i>the FBI wanted to send agents
over to the White House</i>

1266
01:05:22.086 --> 01:05:23.287
<i>to speak to me.</i>

1267
01:05:25.655 --> 01:05:28.158
<i>He admitted he did that
outside the proper channels</i>

1268
01:05:28.358 --> 01:05:30.127
<i>without any discussion
or approvals</i>

1269
01:05:30.327 --> 01:05:31.428
<i>from White House council.</i>

1270
01:05:38.268 --> 01:05:41.571
<i>This was clearly a setup.</i>

1271
01:05:41.738 --> 01:05:44.941
The government will
frequently try to railroad

1272
01:05:45.109 --> 01:05:48.145
various individuals
by not having, um,

1273
01:05:48.345 --> 01:05:50.780
by just telling you, "This is
a friendly conversation.

1274
01:05:50.947 --> 01:05:54.418
No need to have your lawyer
in the office with us."

1275
01:05:54.584 --> 01:05:56.987
And so, what happens
in situations like that

1276
01:05:57.187 --> 01:06:02.426
is that the agents
who are corrupt

1277
01:06:02.592 --> 01:06:06.430
and, and have an agenda,
they're not,

1278
01:06:06.596 --> 01:06:09.566
it's not a genuine,
fair investigation.

1279
01:06:09.733 --> 01:06:11.968
They're free to make up
whatever they want

1280
01:06:12.136 --> 01:06:15.072
about what transpired
because there was no recording,

1281
01:06:15.239 --> 01:06:18.542
and there was no representative
of-- of their interviewee who,

1282
01:06:18.742 --> 01:06:20.710
<i>you know, could make,</i>

1283
01:06:20.910 --> 01:06:23.413
<i>you know, a record of what,
what transpired.</i>

1284
01:06:23.613 --> 01:06:25.549
<i>A bunch of
the seventh-floor people,</i>

1285
01:06:25.749 --> 01:06:27.684
<i>they all got together
and had a meeting about this,</i>

1286
01:06:27.884 --> 01:06:29.719
<i>this interview they were going
to have with General Flynn,</i>

1287
01:06:29.919 --> 01:06:33.390
<i>the ambush interview.
And Bill Priestap in,</i>

1288
01:06:33.590 --> 01:06:35.459
<i>in handwritten notes
that looking back,</i>

1289
01:06:35.659 --> 01:06:37.294
<i>you have to wonder if
he wrote this down on purpose</i>

1290
01:06:37.461 --> 01:06:39.263
as kind of like a flag,

1291
01:06:39.429 --> 01:06:40.797
because he knew
what they were doing was--

1292
01:06:40.964 --> 01:06:44.534
was wrong or if it was
just sheer happenstance

1293
01:06:44.734 --> 01:06:46.236
<i>that he wrote down
a series of notes that said,</i>

1294
01:06:46.436 --> 01:06:47.971
<i>"What is the goal?</i>

1295
01:06:48.172 --> 01:06:50.040
<i>Is the goal to get him
to tell the truth,</i>

1296
01:06:50.240 --> 01:06:52.209
<i>or to get them to lie
so we can get him fired</i>

1297
01:06:52.409 --> 01:06:55.845
<i>or, you know, hold him
accountable for lying?"</i>

1298
01:06:56.012 --> 01:06:58.782
So they knew, going in,
what their motive like was.

1299
01:06:58.948 --> 01:07:00.517
Do we want him to
just tell us the truth,

1300
01:07:00.684 --> 01:07:02.619
or do we want to try
and get him to lie to us?

1301
01:07:03.320 --> 01:07:04.688
This is yet another example

1302
01:07:04.854 --> 01:07:09.693
of weaponization
of federal investigations.

1303
01:07:09.859 --> 01:07:12.329
Both Peter Strzok
and Joseph Bianca wrote

1304
01:07:12.496 --> 01:07:13.830
that he wasn't lying,

1305
01:07:14.030 --> 01:07:15.465
<i>he didn't seem like
he was lying,</i>

1306
01:07:15.665 --> 01:07:16.800
<i>he seemed like
he was being truthful.</i>

1307
01:07:17.000 --> 01:07:18.402
<i>I mean, they wrote this down.</i>

1308
01:07:18.602 --> 01:07:20.270
<i>Which is why
when the DOJ came back</i>

1309
01:07:20.470 --> 01:07:21.871
<i>and said there was
no predicate for this...</i>

1310
01:07:24.274 --> 01:07:26.310
they referenced these things
because there-- there--

1311
01:07:26.476 --> 01:07:29.045
they didn't even believe
he was lying.

1312
01:07:29.213 --> 01:07:30.514
When you go in
to an interview like this,

1313
01:07:30.680 --> 01:07:32.082
you're supposed to
document everything;

1314
01:07:32.282 --> 01:07:33.650
it's something called the 302.

1315
01:07:33.817 --> 01:07:35.585
That's the FBI-speak for a form

1316
01:07:35.785 --> 01:07:37.254
that you write down
your thoughts.

1317
01:07:37.454 --> 01:07:39.589
They didn't fill those out
for weeks.

1318
01:07:39.789 --> 01:07:41.425
<i>And then
when Peter Strzok did,</i>

1319
01:07:41.625 --> 01:07:43.493
<i>he had somebody who wasn't
even in the interview,</i>

1320
01:07:43.693 --> 01:07:46.096
<i>wasn't even involved,
Lisa Page,</i>

1321
01:07:46.296 --> 01:07:47.264
editing it for him.

1322
01:07:49.666 --> 01:07:51.701
You know, I just told them
once they fire,

1323
01:07:51.868 --> 01:07:55.105
once you fire Flynn,
all you guys are gonna go.

1324
01:07:55.305 --> 01:07:57.174
And that's exactly
what happened;

1325
01:07:57.374 --> 01:07:59.109
<i>within, I think,
within a year's time,</i>

1326
01:07:59.309 --> 01:08:01.478
<i>they were all gone.</i>

1327
01:08:01.678 --> 01:08:03.613
<i>All the kind of the
top advisors
around the president.</i>

1328
01:08:03.813 --> 01:08:06.850
<i>As soon as they did that,
there'd be blood in the water.</i>

1329
01:08:07.016 --> 01:08:09.085
I'm pretty sure that's what
I told to Priebus and--

1330
01:08:09.253 --> 01:08:10.954
and others.

1331
01:08:11.155 --> 01:08:13.157
<i>I really think
that those guys</i>

1332
01:08:13.357 --> 01:08:15.359
<i>that were in that White House</i>

1333
01:08:15.559 --> 01:08:18.128
<i>before Mike walked in
that room told him,</i>

1334
01:08:18.328 --> 01:08:22.466
"If you get rid of Flynn,
the Russia thing will go away."

1335
01:08:22.666 --> 01:08:25.569
I guarantee that they tried to
convince him of that.

1336
01:08:25.735 --> 01:08:29.139
And as we know, it only
exacerbated after that.

1337
01:08:29.339 --> 01:08:30.907
<i>Michael Flynn,</i>

1338
01:08:31.107 --> 01:08:33.076
<i>President Donald Trump's
National Security Advisor,</i>

1339
01:08:33.277 --> 01:08:37.080
<i>is under investigation by
U.S. counterintelligence agents</i>

1340
01:08:37.281 --> 01:08:40.350
<i>for communications he's had
with Russian officials.</i>

1341
01:08:40.550 --> 01:08:42.919
<i>What Stefan Halper did</i>

1342
01:08:43.119 --> 01:08:46.390
<i>with the help of the leadership
of the Office of Net Assessment</i>

1343
01:08:46.556 --> 01:08:48.458
between 2010 and 2016

1344
01:08:48.625 --> 01:08:51.728
was create the institutional
infrastructure

1345
01:08:51.895 --> 01:08:55.599
for what became known as
RussiaGate,

1346
01:08:55.765 --> 01:09:00.237
normalizing a known
Russian intelligence officer.

1347
01:09:00.437 --> 01:09:01.371
<i>Okay, so here you have
Chris Steele</i>

1348
01:09:01.571 --> 01:09:03.373
<i>going around Washington saying,</i>

1349
01:09:03.573 --> 01:09:05.709
<i>"Oh yeah, this is
Russian intelligence</i>

1350
01:09:05.909 --> 01:09:10.146
<i>that says that Donald Trump
did these things."</i>

1351
01:09:10.314 --> 01:09:13.417
That, you know, people wouldn't,
you know, take it seriously.

1352
01:09:13.583 --> 01:09:15.752
But we know it was
taken very seriously.

1353
01:09:15.919 --> 01:09:21.291
The Steele dossier
was used as the predicate

1354
01:09:21.458 --> 01:09:23.993
to launch these FISA
investigations.

1355
01:09:24.160 --> 01:09:25.995
The stories about the peeing.

1356
01:09:26.162 --> 01:09:28.565
The stories about
the drunkenness, the drug use.

1357
01:09:28.765 --> 01:09:30.700
<i>It's all fake news.</i>

1358
01:09:30.900 --> 01:09:33.437
<i>It's phony stuff.
It didn't happen.</i>

1359
01:09:33.603 --> 01:09:40.444
The Steele dossier was
sent by special courier

1360
01:09:40.610 --> 01:09:44.948
from John Brennan at CIA
to the White House

1361
01:09:45.114 --> 01:09:50.019
to President Obama and marked,
you know, eyes only.

1362
01:09:50.186 --> 01:09:52.789
This was Russian disinformation.
This is Russian propaganda.

1363
01:09:53.757 --> 01:09:55.659
They had to make Trump
look weird. Right?

1364
01:09:55.825 --> 01:09:57.827
Oh, he's freakish. He's bizarre.

1365
01:09:57.994 --> 01:09:59.396
He-- he, that's why he deserves

1366
01:09:59.596 --> 01:10:01.998
these extraordinary
punishments, right?

1367
01:10:02.165 --> 01:10:06.536
An indictment, an arraignment,
an FBI investigation.

1368
01:10:06.703 --> 01:10:08.472
Same with General Flynn, right?

1369
01:10:08.638 --> 01:10:13.977
This is all about normalizing
our enemies' propaganda

1370
01:10:14.143 --> 01:10:19.583
to stage political hit jobs on
American candidates for office,

1371
01:10:19.783 --> 01:10:22.185
for the highest office
in the country.

1372
01:10:22.352 --> 01:10:28.425
The Steele dossier, which,
of course by July of 2016,

1373
01:10:28.625 --> 01:10:32.061
Brennan knew was
Russian disinformation

1374
01:10:32.228 --> 01:10:35.164
that was generated by
Hillary Clinton

1375
01:10:35.332 --> 01:10:38.067
to smear Donald Trump

1376
01:10:38.234 --> 01:10:40.504
in order to sort of
hide her own misconduct.

1377
01:10:40.704 --> 01:10:42.372
<i>Hillary Clinton
on the stump this week.</i>

1378
01:10:42.572 --> 01:10:44.240
<i>We're joined now by her
campaign manager, Robby Mook.</i>

1379
01:10:44.441 --> 01:10:46.543
<i>Thank you
for joining us this morning.</i>

1380
01:10:46.743 --> 01:10:49.479
<i>The hand of the Kremlin
has been at work
in this campaign for some time,</i>

1381
01:10:49.679 --> 01:10:52.716
<i>it's clear that they are
supporting Donald Trump.</i>

1382
01:10:52.882 --> 01:10:56.353
Brennan and Obama and Comey,

1383
01:10:57.321 --> 01:11:00.123
<i>they inserted
the Steele dossier</i>

1384
01:11:00.324 --> 01:11:06.463
<i>into the 2017 Intelligence
Community Assessment
as a annex.</i>

1385
01:11:07.397 --> 01:11:12.736
So, what they did is they took
Russian disinformation,

1386
01:11:12.902 --> 01:11:16.272
made it into a U.S.
intelligence product

1387
01:11:16.440 --> 01:11:21.478
for the purpose of being able
to cover themselves

1388
01:11:21.678 --> 01:11:24.814
if they were ever questioned
about this nonsense

1389
01:11:25.014 --> 01:11:26.816
in the Steele dossier.

1390
01:11:27.016 --> 01:11:28.418
Sourced the Russian
intelligence,

1391
01:11:28.585 --> 01:11:32.121
clear hit job
against candidate Trump

1392
01:11:32.288 --> 01:11:33.289
and then President Trump.

1393
01:11:33.457 --> 01:11:34.958
They could say, "Oh, look,

1394
01:11:35.124 --> 01:11:38.294
this is a U.S.
government document.

1395
01:11:38.462 --> 01:11:40.129
It's from the intelligence
community.

1396
01:11:40.296 --> 01:11:42.499
It is from
the 17 intelligence agencies

1397
01:11:42.699 --> 01:11:44.133
of the United States government.

1398
01:11:44.300 --> 01:11:47.771
Don't ask me about this.
It's been vetted."

1399
01:11:47.937 --> 01:11:53.076
It's this way of very cynically
covering up a horrendous crime

1400
01:11:53.242 --> 01:11:55.178
and normalizing it
retroactively.

1401
01:11:55.379 --> 01:11:59.315
It was an act of desperation

1402
01:11:59.483 --> 01:12:01.985
because the Obama administration
and the Biden administration

1403
01:12:02.151 --> 01:12:04.153
knew that if Michael Flynn
stayed there

1404
01:12:04.320 --> 01:12:08.658
as Trump's National
Security Advisor,
they were fucked.

1405
01:12:08.825 --> 01:12:10.760
Because he was
going to lash back

1406
01:12:10.927 --> 01:12:14.998
at all of what they did
in the Middle East,

1407
01:12:15.164 --> 01:12:17.166
what they did, or were doing

1408
01:12:17.333 --> 01:12:19.936
to compromise
the United States of America.

1409
01:12:20.103 --> 01:12:25.274
He was squeaky clean.
They couldn't find shit on him.

1410
01:12:25.442 --> 01:12:27.210
And they dug deep.

1411
01:12:27.411 --> 01:12:30.947
There was some story like,
oh, yeah, and then, and then

1412
01:12:31.147 --> 01:12:33.316
<i>General Flynn left this event,</i>

1413
01:12:33.517 --> 01:12:37.387
<i>this dinner, with, um,
with this woman who is</i>

1414
01:12:37.587 --> 01:12:39.623
half Russian, half British.

1415
01:12:39.789 --> 01:12:41.858
Well, of course,
nothing of the sort happened.

1416
01:12:42.025 --> 01:12:43.827
Nothing of the sort
could happen because here--

1417
01:12:43.993 --> 01:12:46.162
here is the director of the DIA,

1418
01:12:46.329 --> 01:12:48.197
a very important role,

1419
01:12:48.364 --> 01:12:52.869
and so he's not going anywhere
off on his own with anyone.

1420
01:12:53.036 --> 01:12:55.872
And she's just
this young woman who's married,

1421
01:12:56.039 --> 01:12:57.641
you know, I think at the time,
if I remember right,

1422
01:12:57.807 --> 01:13:00.209
she was pregnant
or getting ready to have a baby.

1423
01:13:00.376 --> 01:13:02.011
Her life was ruined.

1424
01:13:02.211 --> 01:13:05.982
<i>All because of this guy named--
this-- the--</i>

1425
01:13:06.182 --> 01:13:07.517
<i>this guy they call Halper,
right?</i>

1426
01:13:08.452 --> 01:13:10.153
His name is Halper,
Stefan Halper.

1427
01:13:10.319 --> 01:13:12.355
The Walrus, right?

1428
01:13:12.522 --> 01:13:14.524
Guy's a-- he's a--
he's a walking steam bath

1429
01:13:14.691 --> 01:13:17.260
because he sweats all the time.

1430
01:13:17.461 --> 01:13:22.398
And have to have your family
exposed to that kind of,

1431
01:13:22.566 --> 01:13:25.502
um, that kind of ugliness

1432
01:13:26.135 --> 01:13:28.438
because someone is determined
to destroy you,

1433
01:13:28.638 --> 01:13:30.239
these are very hard things.

1434
01:13:30.406 --> 01:13:32.876
But again, it comes back
to like why, you know,

1435
01:13:33.042 --> 01:13:34.611
why people are mad
about this story.

1436
01:13:34.811 --> 01:13:39.683
Why I'm mad about this story.
Why it hurt...

1437
01:13:39.849 --> 01:13:42.752
Why it was painful for
other families to watch too,

1438
01:13:42.919 --> 01:13:46.523
to imagine what it was like
for his family to, um,

1439
01:13:46.690 --> 01:13:50.426
to be targeted by
these animals like that.

1440
01:13:50.594 --> 01:13:52.028
They disparaged him

1441
01:13:52.195 --> 01:13:54.531
as much as they possibly could
in the media.

1442
01:13:54.698 --> 01:13:57.801
It was all bullshit.
It was all bullshit.

1443
01:13:58.001 --> 01:13:59.969
And we were sitting there
as family going,

1444
01:14:00.169 --> 01:14:01.404
"Michael fucking
has a girlfriend,

1445
01:14:01.571 --> 01:14:02.472
and get to hear he had an affair

1446
01:14:02.672 --> 01:14:04.107
with some Russian girl?"

1447
01:14:04.273 --> 01:14:08.645
I called her up.
I called her up.

1448
01:14:08.845 --> 01:14:11.214
I said, "Hey, tell me
about your relationship

1449
01:14:11.380 --> 01:14:13.049
with my brother Mike.

1450
01:14:13.216 --> 01:14:15.585
You're in trouble here.
You name is all over the place."

1451
01:14:15.752 --> 01:14:17.220
We kind of
endeared ourselves to her.

1452
01:14:17.386 --> 01:14:20.089
I wanted to find out.
Lori needed to know.

1453
01:14:20.256 --> 01:14:23.860
They were saying stuff about
Michael that he had an affair.
She knew it wasn't true.

1454
01:14:24.060 --> 01:14:26.229
<i>But how do you think she felt
when she had to go
see her mother</i>

1455
01:14:26.429 --> 01:14:27.864
<i>and they read it in the paper?</i>

1456
01:14:28.064 --> 01:14:29.499
<i>They didn't give a shit
about how he felt</i>

1457
01:14:29.699 --> 01:14:30.934
<i>or how that affected
his family.</i>

1458
01:14:33.236 --> 01:14:37.741
Obama and Biden
did not want General Flynn

1459
01:14:37.907 --> 01:14:44.147
giving them a proctology exam
without any kind of anesthesia.

1460
01:14:45.148 --> 01:14:47.817
I've said that I'm surprised
that they haven't killed me,

1461
01:14:47.984 --> 01:14:50.754
surprised that they've
let me continue to live.

1462
01:14:51.655 --> 01:14:52.856
Um...

1463
01:14:56.459 --> 01:14:59.262
Maybe they feel like they've
done enough damage to where,

1464
01:14:59.428 --> 01:15:00.964
no matter whenever
I pop my head up,

1465
01:15:01.130 --> 01:15:02.532
wherever I'm at,
they can just kind of go,

1466
01:15:02.732 --> 01:15:04.100
"Oh, that's
the conspiracy theorist.

1467
01:15:04.267 --> 01:15:06.636
He's done this. He's done that."

1468
01:15:06.803 --> 01:15:09.606
And I know that there's
an entire movement of people,

1469
01:15:09.773 --> 01:15:13.977
an organization, that they--
their sole purpose in life

1470
01:15:14.143 --> 01:15:17.647
is to make sure
no matter what I do,

1471
01:15:17.814 --> 01:15:22.051
to find a way to show it
in a dark light.

1472
01:15:22.251 --> 01:15:25.054
You know, we've gone from
the physical assassination

1473
01:15:25.254 --> 01:15:27.523
of a president
of the United States

1474
01:15:27.691 --> 01:15:30.560
to a character assassination
of a National Security Advisor.

1475
01:15:35.331 --> 01:15:37.801
<i>General Flynn
had a private company</i>

1476
01:15:38.001 --> 01:15:41.004
<i>he formed with his son
and a business partner.</i>

1477
01:15:41.170 --> 01:15:44.307
They were engaged by
a private citizen in Turkey

1478
01:15:44.473 --> 01:15:48.912
to do some work on behalf of
this private businessman.

1479
01:15:49.112 --> 01:15:52.081
So there was no need
to report this

1480
01:15:52.281 --> 01:15:54.751
because the private businessman
was not working

1481
01:15:54.951 --> 01:15:57.587
on behalf of
the Turkish government.

1482
01:15:57.787 --> 01:15:59.856
Did not receive any money
from the Turkish government,

1483
01:16:00.023 --> 01:16:01.691
wasn't working with
the Turkish government at all.

1484
01:16:01.858 --> 01:16:03.593
This was a private businessman

1485
01:16:03.793 --> 01:16:08.932
engaging the Flynn Intel Group
to do a job for him.

1486
01:16:18.742 --> 01:16:20.209
<i>All the talk was about</i>

1487
01:16:20.376 --> 01:16:23.680
FARA violations,
Logan Act violations.

1488
01:16:23.847 --> 01:16:25.949
I mean, lots of crazy,
far-fetched laws

1489
01:16:26.149 --> 01:16:28.584
that had either
never been enforced,

1490
01:16:28.752 --> 01:16:30.920
or were rarely enforced,
and if enforced, they were like

1491
01:16:31.087 --> 01:16:32.856
a slap on the wrist
type of, type of thing,

1492
01:16:33.022 --> 01:16:36.192
not some multi-year,
multi-pronged investigation.

1493
01:16:36.359 --> 01:16:39.028
This Laufman guy

1494
01:16:39.195 --> 01:16:41.397
who's running this FARA office,

1495
01:16:41.564 --> 01:16:43.366
they send a letter to Mike
saying,

1496
01:16:43.532 --> 01:16:46.135
hey, you need to fill out
this FARA form.

1497
01:16:46.335 --> 01:16:48.604
So, he didn't have to fill out
a FARA form at all

1498
01:16:48.772 --> 01:16:50.606
because he wasn't working
for the Turkish government.

1499
01:16:50.774 --> 01:16:52.441
He was working for
a Turkish businessman.

1500
01:16:52.608 --> 01:16:53.743
He's got a lawyer at the time.

1501
01:16:53.910 --> 01:16:55.611
She says, "Well, the number one

1502
01:16:55.779 --> 01:16:58.948
FARA filing office
in the country

1503
01:16:59.115 --> 01:17:01.450
is this Covington & Burling."

1504
01:17:01.617 --> 01:17:04.153
You know, you figure,
"Ah, I really don't
need to do this,

1505
01:17:04.353 --> 01:17:05.822
but I'm going to
consult these attorneys

1506
01:17:06.022 --> 01:17:07.957
to see if
I really need to file."

1507
01:17:08.124 --> 01:17:09.592
And they say, "You know what,

1508
01:17:09.759 --> 01:17:11.294
just to be on the safe side,
file."

1509
01:17:11.460 --> 01:17:12.729
You're filling out
an application

1510
01:17:12.896 --> 01:17:14.931
and you know, Covington Burling,

1511
01:17:15.098 --> 01:17:19.568
the number one FARA filing
law firm in the country,

1512
01:17:19.736 --> 01:17:21.237
is filling it out.

1513
01:17:21.404 --> 01:17:23.406
Okay, we're in good shape, right?

1514
01:17:23.572 --> 01:17:26.609
So, um, but how did they
blitz him with this

1515
01:17:26.776 --> 01:17:29.679
FARA violation
because they come back

1516
01:17:29.879 --> 01:17:32.015
and they start adding that,
well, it wasn't a violation.

1517
01:17:32.215 --> 01:17:36.119
They just put the wording into
as many documents as they could.

1518
01:17:36.285 --> 01:17:39.122
They would have some fishy line
about FARA.

1519
01:17:39.288 --> 01:17:41.424
What that did was,

1520
01:17:41.590 --> 01:17:45.294
that let the media
take the term FARA,

1521
01:17:45.461 --> 01:17:48.097
which is Foreign Agent
Registration Act,

1522
01:17:48.264 --> 01:17:50.433
and just call him
a foreign agent.

1523
01:17:50.599 --> 01:17:53.136
So now he gets blitzed,
and he's a foreign spy.

1524
01:17:53.302 --> 01:17:54.938
He's another spy, you know,
he's a Russian spy,

1525
01:17:55.104 --> 01:17:56.472
he's a Turkish spy.

1526
01:17:56.639 --> 01:17:59.208
He's all, he's all kinds of
spies, you know?

1527
01:17:59.408 --> 01:18:01.144
There are so many people
who are collateral damage

1528
01:18:01.310 --> 01:18:04.513
that's-- whose stories
are so intricate,

1529
01:18:04.680 --> 01:18:07.784
that if you can't get people
to understand this big story

1530
01:18:07.951 --> 01:18:10.787
of General Flynn, how in--
how ever would you be able to

1531
01:18:10.954 --> 01:18:12.688
get them to understand
the intricacies?

1532
01:18:12.856 --> 01:18:15.458
So, again,
at the end of the day,

1533
01:18:15.624 --> 01:18:17.660
the Flynn Intel Group
was retained to do business

1534
01:18:17.827 --> 01:18:19.462
for someone who was not attached

1535
01:18:19.628 --> 01:18:21.898
to the Turkish government
at all.

1536
01:18:22.098 --> 01:18:24.801
And they lied and said he was.

1537
01:18:24.968 --> 01:18:27.070
They are smart again, right?
They're going to take out

1538
01:18:27.270 --> 01:18:30.073
the number-one
military intelligence

1539
01:18:30.273 --> 01:18:32.541
officer of our country,
the National Security Advisor

1540
01:18:32.708 --> 01:18:35.644
who's about to find out
everything.

1541
01:18:35.812 --> 01:18:36.813
What do we do now?

1542
01:18:37.013 --> 01:18:38.848
<i>Let's go after his son.</i>

1543
01:18:41.350 --> 01:18:43.486
Was there anything
more significant

1544
01:18:43.652 --> 01:18:46.689
on this timeline to you, Dad,
than anything else, or...?

1545
01:18:46.856 --> 01:18:48.925
[exhales] You know.

1546
01:18:49.125 --> 01:18:51.928
I mean, for me...

1547
01:18:52.128 --> 01:18:53.897
it's that.
Yeah.

1548
01:18:54.063 --> 01:18:55.398
That's the, if there's
one thing that I think about,

1549
01:18:55.564 --> 01:18:57.266
you know, more than--
Yeah.

1550
01:18:57.466 --> 01:19:01.270
That, that's the meeting
where they conspired to

1551
01:19:01.470 --> 01:19:04.707
basically undermine
the presidency

1552
01:19:04.874 --> 01:19:07.076
of the United States of America.

1553
01:19:07.243 --> 01:19:09.045
We live in a time right now

1554
01:19:09.212 --> 01:19:11.080
where more than any other time
in American history...

1555
01:19:13.883 --> 01:19:17.020
the government,
investigative agencies,

1556
01:19:17.186 --> 01:19:19.588
especially the FBI
and the Department of Justice,

1557
01:19:19.755 --> 01:19:21.958
have been weaponized
against the American people.

1558
01:19:24.393 --> 01:19:25.761
When did it dawn on you

1559
01:19:25.929 --> 01:19:29.065
that Michael would be a target?

1560
01:19:29.265 --> 01:19:31.968
<i>Probably by the middle of the summer,
I started to feel that,</i>

1561
01:19:32.168 --> 01:19:34.670
<i>because the FBI
is knocking on his door.</i>

1562
01:19:34.871 --> 01:19:38.007
<i>This is when I--
I had a really difficult time
being able to communicate.</i>

1563
01:19:38.207 --> 01:19:40.743
<i>We had to communicate
through a lawyer,
so I can't even talk to my son.</i>

1564
01:19:40.910 --> 01:19:44.480
Whose advice is that?
- My lawyers at the time.

1565
01:19:44.680 --> 01:19:47.750
Looking back, it was,
it was horrific.

1566
01:19:47.951 --> 01:19:50.519
<i>And then, all of a sudden,
there was--</i>

1567
01:19:50.719 --> 01:19:55.058
<i>started to be newspaper
articles coming out</i>

1568
01:19:55.224 --> 01:19:59.762
that the Department of Justice
is starting to look harder at,

1569
01:19:59.929 --> 01:20:02.331
at General Flynn's son, Michael.

1570
01:20:03.266 --> 01:20:04.733
My team of lawyers was, was,

1571
01:20:04.901 --> 01:20:07.336
was represented by
a gigantic law firm, one of,

1572
01:20:07.536 --> 01:20:09.839
they call them the white-shoe
law firms in Washington, DC,

1573
01:20:10.039 --> 01:20:11.474
Covington & Burling,

1574
01:20:11.640 --> 01:20:13.476
and you really do feel like

1575
01:20:13.642 --> 01:20:15.979
they have your best interests
at heart.

1576
01:20:16.145 --> 01:20:21.017
You know, they come across
as, as professionals.

1577
01:20:21.217 --> 01:20:22.185
And man, was I wrong.

1578
01:20:24.753 --> 01:20:26.923
A moment of,
of misjudgment on my part.

1579
01:20:32.261 --> 01:20:35.999
That's all part of that
Washington, DC, establishment.

1580
01:20:36.165 --> 01:20:40.970
You're looking at 25 years and
about a half a dozen felonies.

1581
01:20:41.137 --> 01:20:45.108
Okay. And they're gonna go
after your son.

1582
01:20:47.343 --> 01:20:50.846
And I'm like, "You gotta be
shitting me. For what?"

1583
01:20:51.014 --> 01:20:53.216
And I'm sitting there,
height of the,

1584
01:20:53.416 --> 01:20:57.153
of the Mueller investigation.
It's really just kicking in.

1585
01:20:57.320 --> 01:21:01.290
There's nobody around, okay;
who I had was my family.

1586
01:21:01.457 --> 01:21:03.859
I didn't have big media stars.

1587
01:21:04.027 --> 01:21:05.461
I didn't have
big political stars.

1588
01:21:05.628 --> 01:21:06.495
I didn't have the White House.

1589
01:21:07.463 --> 01:21:09.899
We're already into
our house being sold.

1590
01:21:10.099 --> 01:21:12.168
We're already into an ungodly
amount of money that was--

1591
01:21:12.335 --> 01:21:13.903
that it's costing,
and you're just

1592
01:21:14.103 --> 01:21:15.704
kind of like,
"I got to stop this.

1593
01:21:15.871 --> 01:21:17.006
You know, I got to
stop this bleeding."

1594
01:21:17.941 --> 01:21:20.143
It was mental and emotional
bleeding.

1595
01:21:21.044 --> 01:21:23.079
And it was happening to me,

1596
01:21:23.279 --> 01:21:25.748
my wife, my kids, my family.

1597
01:21:25.949 --> 01:21:30.819
I'll give my life for my family

1598
01:21:30.987 --> 01:21:32.421
because I would have given
my life for this country.

1599
01:21:32.621 --> 01:21:36.692
They're the reason why I fight.

1600
01:21:36.859 --> 01:21:42.898
What they did-- they knew
that nothing was there.

1601
01:21:43.066 --> 01:21:45.501
Michael Flynn Jr.
worked for Flynn Intel Group

1602
01:21:45.668 --> 01:21:48.004
with his dad
and the business partner.

1603
01:21:48.171 --> 01:21:55.011
So, they saw him
as a weapon to wield because

1604
01:21:55.178 --> 01:21:58.647
they were going after
General Flynn's business partner

1605
01:21:58.847 --> 01:22:01.650
<i>and Ekim Alptekin.</i>

1606
01:22:01.850 --> 01:22:03.519
<i>As sort of a pawn,</i>

1607
01:22:03.686 --> 01:22:07.923
they looped in a threat
against Michael Flynn, Jr.

1608
01:22:08.091 --> 01:22:09.758
to get General Flynn
to plead guilty.

1609
01:22:09.925 --> 01:22:12.361
All right,
a lot of people, you know,

1610
01:22:12.528 --> 01:22:14.597
asked us that question:
"Why did you guys even go
with Covington & Burling?"

1611
01:22:14.763 --> 01:22:17.200
You know, they were
the DC FARA experts.

1612
01:22:17.366 --> 01:22:19.102
They never really
fought for anything.

1613
01:22:19.268 --> 01:22:21.070
You know, they-- if you had
something on Trump,

1614
01:22:21.237 --> 01:22:22.938
that, you know,
it would help you.

1615
01:22:23.106 --> 01:22:26.409
They brought my son in,

1616
01:22:26.575 --> 01:22:27.977
knowing where he was
in his life,

1617
01:22:28.177 --> 01:22:32.648
and, and knowing how bad

1618
01:22:32.848 --> 01:22:34.950
the rule of law system
is in Washington, DC.

1619
01:22:35.118 --> 01:22:38.421
That was a major pain point.
Huge.

1620
01:22:38.587 --> 01:22:41.324
All the lawyers
then became involved

1621
01:22:41.524 --> 01:22:45.094
in something that is
absolutely prohibited

1622
01:22:45.261 --> 01:22:46.996
in federal court
in that they had

1623
01:22:47.196 --> 01:22:49.265
an off-the-books
part of the deal.

1624
01:22:49.465 --> 01:22:51.200
<i>They had this deal</i>

1625
01:22:51.400 --> 01:22:53.502
<i>that was communicated
to General Flynn</i>

1626
01:22:53.702 --> 01:22:56.572
<i>where the government
wouldn't put it in writing,</i>

1627
01:22:56.772 --> 01:23:02.078
<i>but they would agree orally
that if he accepted this plea,</i>

1628
01:23:02.278 --> 01:23:04.347
<i>they wouldn't prosecute
his son.</i>

1629
01:23:07.983 --> 01:23:10.986
What parent could ever
say no to that?

1630
01:23:11.154 --> 01:23:14.790
What parent could ever
fight back against that,

1631
01:23:14.957 --> 01:23:18.961
where they're threatening
to put your son in jail

1632
01:23:19.128 --> 01:23:22.265
right before that
son's oldest son is born,

1633
01:23:22.431 --> 01:23:24.200
right before their grandson's
about to be born?

1634
01:23:28.437 --> 01:23:32.041
We have rules in federal court
to stop that,

1635
01:23:32.241 --> 01:23:35.611
to make sure that these
off-the-book deals don't happen.

1636
01:23:38.281 --> 01:23:41.284
And those lawyers on both sides,
the Special Counsel's Office

1637
01:23:41.450 --> 01:23:44.220
and the Covington & Burling
lawyers,

1638
01:23:44.420 --> 01:23:47.623
walked into federal court
and they lied.

1639
01:23:47.790 --> 01:23:50.493
They lied when the judge
asked if there was any

1640
01:23:50.659 --> 01:23:52.828
off-the-books deals.

1641
01:23:52.995 --> 01:23:56.065
They said there wasn't.
There was.

1642
01:23:56.265 --> 01:23:59.635
And it was all
part of this effort

1643
01:23:59.802 --> 01:24:01.204
for Covington & Burling

1644
01:24:01.370 --> 01:24:02.805
to protect their own hide,

1645
01:24:02.971 --> 01:24:05.808
rather than to look out
for their client.

1646
01:24:05.974 --> 01:24:08.077
It was disgusting.

1647
01:24:08.277 --> 01:24:10.879
And then also, don't forget
that if you do plead

1648
01:24:11.046 --> 01:24:13.649
not guilty and go to trial,

1649
01:24:13.816 --> 01:24:16.652
you're going to have a DC jury,
you're going to have a DC judge,

1650
01:24:16.819 --> 01:24:18.854
and then you'll probably
be found guilty,

1651
01:24:19.021 --> 01:24:21.090
and, you know, you're--
you're looking at 20,

1652
01:24:21.290 --> 01:24:23.526
25 years in prison.

1653
01:24:23.692 --> 01:24:26.895
So, this is probably the best
deal for you to do this.

1654
01:24:27.062 --> 01:24:29.064
And then a lot of people say,
"Oh, even if that was my son,

1655
01:24:29.232 --> 01:24:30.699
I would have never done that."
No.

1656
01:24:30.866 --> 01:24:31.900
You don't know
what you would have done

1657
01:24:32.067 --> 01:24:33.702
unless you were in our shoes,

1658
01:24:33.869 --> 01:24:35.604
and having to have
your lawyers tell you

1659
01:24:35.804 --> 01:24:38.441
that people that you thought
were doing the best for you,

1660
01:24:38.641 --> 01:24:40.709
that this was
the best thing for you,

1661
01:24:40.876 --> 01:24:43.112
and this is the only way
you're going to get out of this

1662
01:24:43.312 --> 01:24:46.115
is if you sign this plea deal.
So that's what we did.

1663
01:24:46.315 --> 01:24:48.217
People plead guilty
to crimes they did not commit

1664
01:24:48.384 --> 01:24:51.420
every single day
in this country.

1665
01:24:51.587 --> 01:24:53.289
A lot of the times,
it's minorities

1666
01:24:53.489 --> 01:24:55.624
that are pleading guilty
to crimes they didn't commit,

1667
01:24:55.824 --> 01:24:58.694
<i>because who has the resources</i>

1668
01:24:58.894 --> 01:25:03.899
<i>to fight the juggernaut that is
the American justice system?</i>

1669
01:25:04.066 --> 01:25:07.102
And so, the government starts
leaning on Covington

1670
01:25:07.270 --> 01:25:09.705
and Covington starts leaning
on General Flynn

1671
01:25:09.872 --> 01:25:13.209
to accept a plea deal.

1672
01:25:13.376 --> 01:25:19.948
Single count of a violation
of 18 USC-1001,

1673
01:25:20.115 --> 01:25:22.251
which is providing a false
statement to the government.

1674
01:25:26.455 --> 01:25:28.557
<i>But of course,
the unbelievable turn of events</i>

1675
01:25:28.757 --> 01:25:30.226
<i>in today's news
happened in federal court</i>

1676
01:25:30.426 --> 01:25:32.094
<i>in Washington, DC,</i>

1677
01:25:32.295 --> 01:25:35.231
<i>in the courtroom
of Judge Emmet Sullivan.</i>

1678
01:25:35.431 --> 01:25:38.201
<i>And then the prosecution
is the Department of Justice.</i>

1679
01:25:38.401 --> 01:25:40.903
<i>And the Department of Justice
had probably
about 20 lawyers there.</i>

1680
01:25:41.069 --> 01:25:42.571
One of them
was the Solicitor General

1681
01:25:42.738 --> 01:25:44.640
for the United States
of America.

1682
01:25:44.807 --> 01:25:50.513
And the prosecutor, in my case,
his name was Brandon Van Grack.

1683
01:25:50.713 --> 01:25:52.415
<i>So we go into this courtroom,</i>

1684
01:25:52.581 --> 01:25:54.250
one of the most packed
hearings that they ever had

1685
01:25:54.417 --> 01:25:57.353
in the federal courthouse
of Washington, DC.

1686
01:25:57.553 --> 01:25:59.154
Then, all of a sudden,
out of nowhere,

1687
01:25:59.322 --> 01:26:01.690
the judge goes
right off the rails,

1688
01:26:01.890 --> 01:26:03.859
and he started going down
this other path and...

1689
01:26:04.059 --> 01:26:05.428
well, he said, "You turned
your back on your country."

1690
01:26:05.628 --> 01:26:07.530
<i>It sure sounded as though</i>

1691
01:26:07.730 --> 01:26:10.065
<i>Judge Sullivan was going to
send Flynn to the clink</i>

1692
01:26:10.266 --> 01:26:12.901
<i>for at least
some period of time.</i>

1693
01:26:13.101 --> 01:26:17.039
<i>It did, Jake.
The judge stressed that prison
time was not off the table.</i>

1694
01:26:17.240 --> 01:26:20.643
<i>And my lawyers tell me,
going into this hearing,</i>

1695
01:26:20.843 --> 01:26:23.078
<i>"Don't worry, you're not
going to have to say much here.</i>

1696
01:26:23.279 --> 01:26:25.681
<i>The prosecution's going to do
most of the talking." Okay?</i>

1697
01:26:25.848 --> 01:26:27.850
And just the opposite happened.

1698
01:26:28.016 --> 01:26:29.685
You know, I get questions
from the judge.

1699
01:26:29.852 --> 01:26:31.387
And I'm answering
all the questions

1700
01:26:31.587 --> 01:26:33.856
and then the judge
starts to accuse me.

1701
01:26:34.022 --> 01:26:36.225
And he does
this very famous turns,

1702
01:26:36.425 --> 01:26:40.629
he turns, and he grabs
the flag behind his,

1703
01:26:40.796 --> 01:26:43.131
where his seat behind his bench,

1704
01:26:43.299 --> 01:26:45.334
and he grabs the flag,
and he turns back and he says,

1705
01:26:45.501 --> 01:26:47.035
you know, basically accuses me

1706
01:26:47.202 --> 01:26:49.204
of committing treason.
"Could he have been--

1707
01:26:49.372 --> 01:26:52.408
could he have been tried
for treason?

1708
01:26:52.608 --> 01:26:53.809
Or could he have been
found guilty of treason?"

1709
01:26:53.976 --> 01:26:55.511
To the prosecutor.

1710
01:26:55.678 --> 01:26:57.746
And Grack is, he was
kind of taken by it too.

1711
01:26:57.946 --> 01:27:00.483
The DOJ lawyer.

1712
01:27:00.649 --> 01:27:03.185
And he essentially says,
you know, "No, Your Honor.

1713
01:27:03.352 --> 01:27:04.987
No, Your Honor."

1714
01:27:05.153 --> 01:27:07.356
But, but the, so the judge
is sitting there

1715
01:27:07.523 --> 01:27:09.157
accusing me of treason
in a court,

1716
01:27:09.325 --> 01:27:11.059
and I'm not even in there for
any of that.

1717
01:27:11.226 --> 01:27:13.696
He's hugging the American flag
and he's saying, you know,

1718
01:27:13.862 --> 01:27:16.265
"You turned your back
on this country."

1719
01:27:16.465 --> 01:27:18.701
We were shocked.
There had been no trial.

1720
01:27:18.867 --> 01:27:20.336
There had been
no exchange of evidence.

1721
01:27:20.503 --> 01:27:22.271
There had been
no cross-examinations.

1722
01:27:22.471 --> 01:27:24.440
I thought his ini-- his outburst

1723
01:27:24.640 --> 01:27:28.210
calling General Michael Flynn
a traitor...

1724
01:27:28.377 --> 01:27:30.078
I mean, it was-- he was the one

1725
01:27:30.245 --> 01:27:32.247
who brought dishonor
upon his courtroom

1726
01:27:32.415 --> 01:27:35.050
and upon himself, right,
to scream out those things.

1727
01:27:35.217 --> 01:27:36.719
I mean, what an ignoramus.

1728
01:27:36.885 --> 01:27:38.220
There's no doubt in my mind

1729
01:27:38.387 --> 01:27:40.222
he did it for the benefit
of the media

1730
01:27:40.389 --> 01:27:42.725
because the media was on
pins and needles that day.

1731
01:27:42.891 --> 01:27:44.460
You know, they call them
the talking heads

1732
01:27:44.660 --> 01:27:46.929
on these shows,
who are these former

1733
01:27:47.095 --> 01:27:50.633
intelligence community
officials, like Brennan,

1734
01:27:50.833 --> 01:27:52.468
<i>like Clapper,</i>

1735
01:27:52.668 --> 01:27:54.036
<i>like Comey,</i>

1736
01:27:54.236 --> 01:27:56.339
<i>like McCabe.</i>

1737
01:27:56.539 --> 01:27:59.375
<i>Peter Strzok,
Lisa Page, Sally Yates;</i>

1738
01:27:59.542 --> 01:28:00.943
you can't control these people.

1739
01:28:01.109 --> 01:28:04.079
And they're accusing me
of spying

1740
01:28:04.246 --> 01:28:06.649
against the United States
of America for Russia.

1741
01:28:06.849 --> 01:28:09.051
Of course, the media takes off,
takes off with,
"Well, even, you know,

1742
01:28:09.217 --> 01:28:11.820
even Judge Sullivan, you know,
in the courtroom

1743
01:28:12.020 --> 01:28:13.856
called General Flynn traitor."

1744
01:28:14.056 --> 01:28:17.259
<i>The judge,
I believe, realized</i>

1745
01:28:17.460 --> 01:28:19.462
<i>that what he just did</i>

1746
01:28:19.628 --> 01:28:22.765
would probably lead to a,
to some type of mistrial

1747
01:28:22.931 --> 01:28:25.568
or probably lead to
something bad for him,

1748
01:28:25.734 --> 01:28:29.472
because he just accused me
of something publicly
that I wasn't even in there for.

1749
01:28:29.638 --> 01:28:32.675
You could feel
inside of that courtroom

1750
01:28:32.875 --> 01:28:35.511
the level of tension
was unbelievable.

1751
01:28:35.711 --> 01:28:37.413
And I'm looking at
the lineup of prosecutors

1752
01:28:37.580 --> 01:28:39.181
from the Department of Justice,

1753
01:28:39.382 --> 01:28:40.916
and they were all
like white-faced,

1754
01:28:41.083 --> 01:28:44.152
like "Holy crap,
what did this judge just do?"

1755
01:28:44.319 --> 01:28:45.921
And the judge says,
"You know, do we need to talk?

1756
01:28:46.088 --> 01:28:47.590
Do we need time
to take a break?"

1757
01:28:47.756 --> 01:28:49.492
And I do this--

1758
01:28:49.658 --> 01:28:50.526
I don't know if you caught that,

1759
01:28:50.726 --> 01:28:52.961
but I did this.

1760
01:28:53.128 --> 01:28:55.598
And my lawyer said,
"Yes, Your Honor."

1761
01:28:55.764 --> 01:28:57.332
Prosecution,
"Yes, Your Honor. We're okay."

1762
01:28:57.500 --> 01:28:58.467
So, we take a break.

1763
01:28:59.402 --> 01:29:02.137
<i>The judge today
really rebukes Michael Flynn</i>

1764
01:29:02.337 --> 01:29:04.106
<i>and uses words like treason,</i>

1765
01:29:04.306 --> 01:29:05.774
<i>that you allegedly
sold out your country.</i>

1766
01:29:05.941 --> 01:29:07.810
After the treason comment

1767
01:29:07.976 --> 01:29:09.645
and after the--
thank God they took that break,

1768
01:29:09.812 --> 01:29:13.148
Lori, I think, said,
"We gotta take a break here."

1769
01:29:13.315 --> 01:29:15.150
She looked at me and said,

1770
01:29:15.350 --> 01:29:18.220
<i>"This is going off the rails.
This is a disaster.</i>

1771
01:29:18.421 --> 01:29:20.989
<i>He's gonna put him
in jail today."</i>

1772
01:29:21.156 --> 01:29:23.492
I get back into the courtroom

1773
01:29:23.659 --> 01:29:28.497
and the judge knew
that he, he was wrong.

1774
01:29:28.664 --> 01:29:30.666
And he came back out
and he essentially,

1775
01:29:30.833 --> 01:29:33.335
in a shitty way, he apologized.

1776
01:29:33.502 --> 01:29:36.572
He gave a shitty apology.
But the damage was done.

1777
01:29:36.772 --> 01:29:39.475
<i>Threatening jail time for
lying to the FBI.</i>

1778
01:29:39.675 --> 01:29:41.810
<i>But I-- but I want to read you
some more of this judge.</i>

1779
01:29:42.010 --> 01:29:44.913
<i>This judge has become
a fascinating new figure
in this drama.</i>

1780
01:29:45.113 --> 01:29:48.584
And he says, "Okay,
we'll come back in like
90 days" or something.

1781
01:29:48.784 --> 01:29:51.153
"We will-- we'll revisit
in 90 days."

1782
01:29:52.988 --> 01:29:58.360
And, you know,
pounds his gavel and,

1783
01:29:58.527 --> 01:30:01.063
and we all get up, he walks out.

1784
01:30:01.229 --> 01:30:06.268
And I mean, it was,
it was like total chaos.

1785
01:30:06.469 --> 01:30:09.872
By the grace of God,
Sullivan let him walk out

1786
01:30:10.038 --> 01:30:12.441
of that courtroom
without going to prison.

1787
01:30:12.641 --> 01:30:17.212
I think he probably regrets;
I think Sullivan regrets
that decision to this day.

1788
01:30:17.379 --> 01:30:21.016
We ended up going back over
to my son Michael's house
to just find some relief.

1789
01:30:21.183 --> 01:30:22.751
The baby's running around.

1790
01:30:22.918 --> 01:30:25.554
The baby, he's like,
crawling around.

1791
01:30:29.558 --> 01:30:32.060
We don't know that
they had threatened Mike.

1792
01:30:32.227 --> 01:30:36.632
I must have walked
around DC after that,

1793
01:30:36.832 --> 01:30:39.735
after that hearing,
for a good six, seven hours,

1794
01:30:39.902 --> 01:30:41.236
just walking around,
just looking at the sky,

1795
01:30:41.403 --> 01:30:43.405
like crying my eyes out.

1796
01:30:43.572 --> 01:30:46.642
There's-- there's no resolution,
you're two years into this now.

1797
01:30:46.842 --> 01:30:51.480
Okay. And you have no idea
how much longer this--
this is going to take.

1798
01:30:51.680 --> 01:30:57.452
I'm battling with terrible PTSD,
terrible PTSD from--
from this experience.

1799
01:30:57.620 --> 01:31:00.756
You know, I just, I describe it
as this constant drumbeat of,

1800
01:31:00.923 --> 01:31:04.059
of dot, you know, of subpoenas,
search warrants, you know,

1801
01:31:04.226 --> 01:31:07.963
emails, email requests
for information,

1802
01:31:08.130 --> 01:31:11.466
eventual media, you know,
parked outside of my house.

1803
01:31:15.571 --> 01:31:19.174
<i>And I want to talk about
that "being alone" feeling.</i>

1804
01:31:19.374 --> 01:31:21.309
There are very few things that
are worse than feeling alone

1805
01:31:21.476 --> 01:31:25.080
when you're going through
like incredible,
incredible trauma.

1806
01:31:27.115 --> 01:31:27.916
Um...

1807
01:31:29.918 --> 01:31:31.253
There was just so much
that was happening,

1808
01:31:31.419 --> 01:31:34.022
so much that was happening
that I...

1809
01:31:34.222 --> 01:31:36.759
I didn't understand
at the time, you know?

1810
01:31:36.925 --> 01:31:38.493
I didn't understand, I mean,
I didn't really understand

1811
01:31:38.661 --> 01:31:40.796
the concept of the deep state,
you know?

1812
01:31:40.963 --> 01:31:42.965
I didn't understand, you know,
that the Department of Justice

1813
01:31:43.131 --> 01:31:45.267
can indict
a ham sandwich concept.

1814
01:31:45.433 --> 01:31:47.536
You know, like I just,
all of a sudden, I'm--

1815
01:31:47.736 --> 01:31:50.038
I'm hearing that my father
could potentially

1816
01:31:50.238 --> 01:31:52.608
go away to prison for 15 years.

1817
01:31:52.775 --> 01:31:55.711
I remember the conversations
that I had with my mom about...

1818
01:32:01.183 --> 01:32:02.785
just about like,

1819
01:32:02.951 --> 01:32:05.654
"Which prison are we
gonna go visit him at?"

1820
01:32:05.821 --> 01:32:08.323
I can't even imagine like,
what my mom,

1821
01:32:08.490 --> 01:32:10.358
what my mom was thinking about.

1822
01:32:10.525 --> 01:32:13.295
It's been really hard
on him, I think,

1823
01:32:13.461 --> 01:32:15.731
harder on him, I think,
than on me, truthfully.

1824
01:32:15.931 --> 01:32:19.735
Because imagine
having a son feel like

1825
01:32:19.935 --> 01:32:21.804
he is the reason
your father had to plead guilty

1826
01:32:21.970 --> 01:32:24.539
to a crime he didn't commit.

1827
01:32:24.707 --> 01:32:28.343
I can't imagine the burden
that he had, I mean, the guilt.

1828
01:32:28.510 --> 01:32:30.145
And it's almost like
survivor's guilt, really.

1829
01:32:30.312 --> 01:32:32.581
He just felt like, you know,

1830
01:32:32.781 --> 01:32:35.250
his dad was willing
to go to prison for him.

1831
01:32:35.450 --> 01:32:38.020
You know, I mean,
I didn't believe it.
I just didn't believe it.

1832
01:32:38.186 --> 01:32:39.855
It took me years
to understand, like,

1833
01:32:40.022 --> 01:32:43.859
oh, he was doing this to,
to basically save, to save me.

1834
01:32:44.026 --> 01:32:46.829
You know, if I wasn't,
if I wasn't there,
he wouldn't have done it.

1835
01:32:46.995 --> 01:32:50.565
He would have kept--
he would have kept fighting,
but it's like, I understand.

1836
01:32:50.733 --> 01:32:52.200
I understand, like...

1837
01:32:55.704 --> 01:32:58.373
I understand as a father,
you know, like,

1838
01:32:58.540 --> 01:33:00.943
what you would do.

1839
01:33:01.143 --> 01:33:03.111
You know, you'd fall,
you'd fall on a sword

1840
01:33:03.311 --> 01:33:07.683
to protect your child, you know,
and I understand that.

1841
01:33:07.850 --> 01:33:11.687
I understand that more now
than ever.

1842
01:33:11.854 --> 01:33:14.122
Anytime I wanted to talk
to my father about this stuff,

1843
01:33:14.322 --> 01:33:16.091
it-- it just it--

1844
01:33:16.258 --> 01:33:18.961
the conversation always turned
into "Talk to your lawyer.

1845
01:33:19.161 --> 01:33:21.730
Talk to your lawyer.
Talk to your lawyer."

1846
01:33:21.897 --> 01:33:24.867
We subsequently,
subsequently had to talk

1847
01:33:25.067 --> 01:33:27.469
<i>to each other
through our lawyers.</i>

1848
01:33:27.670 --> 01:33:29.204
<i>It was after that,
I mean, I went into,</i>

1849
01:33:29.404 --> 01:33:32.474
<i>I mean, I went into
a very deep depression,</i>

1850
01:33:33.075 --> 01:33:35.811
very deep depression going
into 2018.

1851
01:33:36.011 --> 01:33:38.747
I mean, like
suicidal depression.

1852
01:33:38.914 --> 01:33:40.649
Okay, and I don't
say that lightly

1853
01:33:40.849 --> 01:33:43.986
because that is just not a topic
that is, is easy to discuss.

1854
01:33:45.921 --> 01:33:48.724
But, you know, the only thing,

1855
01:33:48.891 --> 01:33:50.558
the only thing
that kept me from...

1856
01:33:55.898 --> 01:34:00.235
the only thing
that kept me alive was my--
was my son.

1857
01:34:00.402 --> 01:34:04.673
And thank God, thank God
I have him in my life.

1858
01:34:04.873 --> 01:34:06.474
Thank God I had him
in my life then.

1859
01:34:06.641 --> 01:34:11.980
...to my Flag and the Republic
for which it stands,

1860
01:34:12.147 --> 01:34:18.453
one nation under God,
indivisible,

1861
01:34:18.620 --> 01:34:21.656
with liberty and justice
for all.

1862
01:34:27.229 --> 01:34:29.698
Travis was a super important
part of my life.

1863
01:34:29.898 --> 01:34:33.368
I mean, and... yeah.

1864
01:34:37.973 --> 01:34:40.108
Little peanut just turned six.

1865
01:34:42.510 --> 01:34:45.047
But anyway.
When he, you know, it's like...

1866
01:34:48.083 --> 01:34:50.719
I mean, during this time
he's born, right,

1867
01:34:50.919 --> 01:34:54.656
I mean, he's a big baby.
And he like, poof, he like,

1868
01:34:54.823 --> 01:34:56.458
I would hold him,

1869
01:34:56.624 --> 01:35:00.896
and his innocence
reminded me about

1870
01:35:01.096 --> 01:35:03.365
just everything
that was good in life.

1871
01:35:03.531 --> 01:35:06.835
Everything. I mean,
the innocence of a child,

1872
01:35:07.002 --> 01:35:09.471
the innocence of my grandchild

1873
01:35:10.105 --> 01:35:17.079
just reminded me of how...
how important, you know,

1874
01:35:17.679 --> 01:35:20.582
what it is that we do
on a daily basis is.

1875
01:35:20.783 --> 01:35:23.018
<i>And one of the ways
that you live your faith,</i>

1876
01:35:23.218 --> 01:35:24.920
<i>and I like to believe
that that's the way</i>

1877
01:35:25.120 --> 01:35:26.955
<i>I live my faith,
is through my family...</i>

1878
01:35:27.155 --> 01:35:29.591
<i>because I love my family.</i>

1879
01:35:29.792 --> 01:35:32.961
<i>And, and I'd do
anything for 'em.</i>

1880
01:35:33.161 --> 01:35:37.532
<i>And I want my family
to know that...</i>

1881
01:35:37.699 --> 01:35:39.501
to know that. I want
my family to know that,

1882
01:35:39.667 --> 01:35:41.069
that I would do
anything for 'em.

1883
01:35:41.236 --> 01:35:43.538
And definitely my own kids.

1884
01:35:43.705 --> 01:35:47.342
And I think with, with Michael,
he feels the same way.

1885
01:35:47.509 --> 01:35:50.846
The, you know, Michael
looking at Travis...

1886
01:35:54.549 --> 01:35:57.552
and, and thinking about
what he was thinking about,

1887
01:35:57.719 --> 01:36:03.758
going through that emotion of,
of, of the, of the idea

1888
01:36:03.926 --> 01:36:07.930
that, you know, he's
contemplating killing himself.

1889
01:36:08.096 --> 01:36:10.132
He's contemplating suicide.

1890
01:36:11.066 --> 01:36:14.036
I always said, "Michael,
just know that
no matter what happens,

1891
01:36:14.202 --> 01:36:16.438
you know,
your dad and I are here.

1892
01:36:16.604 --> 01:36:21.910
Nothing should get
as low for you as that."

1893
01:36:22.077 --> 01:36:25.080
So, and he promised me,

1894
01:36:25.280 --> 01:36:27.482
<i>"Mom, I would never
because I have Travis."</i>

1895
01:36:27.682 --> 01:36:30.585
<i>And I said "That's right.
You have Travis,
and Travis needs you.</i>

1896
01:36:30.785 --> 01:36:34.990
<i>He needs you
to be there for him.
Like your dad was for you."</i>

1897
01:36:35.190 --> 01:36:41.263
Wow. I mean, you know.

1898
01:36:41.429 --> 01:36:45.934
So, for people...
and maybe this is how I,

1899
01:36:46.101 --> 01:36:47.635
you know, how I adjust myself,

1900
01:36:47.802 --> 01:36:49.637
for people, people
need to understand that,

1901
01:36:49.804 --> 01:36:56.244
that, that life is so fleeting,
so fleeting.

1902
01:36:56.411 --> 01:37:00.015
You know, what the, what you--
what you're looking for,

1903
01:37:00.215 --> 01:37:03.018
is you're looking for love.

1904
01:37:03.218 --> 01:37:07.355
You're looking for like,
is, is there love there?

1905
01:37:07.555 --> 01:37:14.496
And I know for me, and I--
and I know for Michael,

1906
01:37:15.463 --> 01:37:18.633
that we found it. We found it.

1907
01:37:18.800 --> 01:37:20.936
We found it in each other.

1908
01:37:21.103 --> 01:37:23.638
We found it in our families
and--

1909
01:37:23.805 --> 01:37:26.608
and I found it in my son,

1910
01:37:26.808 --> 01:37:29.811
<i>and he found it in his son,
my grandson.</i>

1911
01:37:30.745 --> 01:37:33.115
And I thank God that he did.

1912
01:37:33.281 --> 01:37:37.485
Because I don't know
where I'd be today if,

1913
01:37:37.652 --> 01:37:42.024
uh, if that--
if that had ever happened.

1914
01:37:42.624 --> 01:37:45.227
And I don't know what--
what I would have done.

1915
01:37:47.129 --> 01:37:50.132
That's--
that's just something that's,

1916
01:37:50.298 --> 01:37:53.068
I can't even contemplate it.

1917
01:37:53.268 --> 01:37:55.070
Can't-- that's just
unimaginable to me.

1918
01:38:09.952 --> 01:38:12.420
<i>That's why
one of the most important
things</i>

1919
01:38:12.620 --> 01:38:16.291
<i>that General Flynn did is
fired Covington & Burling
and hired Sidney Powell,</i>

1920
01:38:16.491 --> 01:38:18.526
<i>somebody who had the courage
to go toe to toe with them.</i>

1921
01:38:18.726 --> 01:38:20.728
<i>Lori and I
were going through</i>

1922
01:38:20.895 --> 01:38:23.231
our own sort of
mental gymnastics
to figure out a way to dump them

1923
01:38:23.398 --> 01:38:27.902
and find, find somebody
who was going to
stand up courageously

1924
01:38:28.070 --> 01:38:30.272
and fight for us.

1925
01:38:30.472 --> 01:38:33.942
Mike gave his consent
as a client

1926
01:38:34.142 --> 01:38:38.180
to allow Sidney to read through
all of the documents.

1927
01:38:38.346 --> 01:38:41.716
And so, she started
uncovering the fact

1928
01:38:41.883 --> 01:38:46.754
that Covington Burling had
a conflict of interest

1929
01:38:46.921 --> 01:38:50.525
representing Mike
on this 1001 charge.

1930
01:38:50.692 --> 01:38:53.261
They were not in a position
where they should be involved

1931
01:38:54.229 --> 01:38:55.363
in the matter
before Judge Sullivan.

1932
01:38:55.530 --> 01:38:58.933
My first task was to

1933
01:38:59.101 --> 01:39:01.970
help with the transition
of the case

1934
01:39:02.170 --> 01:39:06.541
from Covington & Burling to
Sidney Powell as lead counsel.

1935
01:39:06.741 --> 01:39:10.145
<i>There was a striking difference
at that point</i>

1936
01:39:10.345 --> 01:39:12.514
<i>about the way that we were
defending our client,</i>

1937
01:39:12.714 --> 01:39:15.317
<i>and his predecessors
were defending him.</i>

1938
01:39:15.517 --> 01:39:18.420
We're not going to let
the government bully us

1939
01:39:18.586 --> 01:39:22.957
into having our client
provide false testimony.

1940
01:39:23.125 --> 01:39:25.960
And that was my first
real involvement in the case,

1941
01:39:26.128 --> 01:39:31.399
is to-- is to go forward
and dig our heels in and say,

1942
01:39:31.566 --> 01:39:34.569
"We're here to defend the truth,

1943
01:39:34.736 --> 01:39:37.072
not the government's
false narrative."

1944
01:39:37.239 --> 01:39:39.574
The decision then was
not to get this judge

1945
01:39:39.741 --> 01:39:41.843
to lessen my sentence;
the fight now was going to be

1946
01:39:42.044 --> 01:39:45.947
we're going to pull
my guilty plea.

1947
01:39:46.114 --> 01:39:48.283
Particularly in this case,

1948
01:39:48.450 --> 01:39:52.687
the amount of exculpatory
information that was coming in.

1949
01:39:52.887 --> 01:39:54.356
Yeah.

1950
01:39:54.556 --> 01:39:59.861
I mean, I saw all of it.
I was stunned with it all.

1951
01:40:00.062 --> 01:40:02.397
<i>I mean,
it went on and on and on.</i>

1952
01:40:02.597 --> 01:40:05.800
<i>And you could see through</i>

1953
01:40:05.967 --> 01:40:09.537
the time period of
Michael's case

1954
01:40:09.737 --> 01:40:12.707
and his dealings
with the attorneys,

1955
01:40:12.907 --> 01:40:16.344
you could see the case
literally unfold

1956
01:40:16.511 --> 01:40:19.047
as new information came out.

1957
01:40:19.247 --> 01:40:22.784
Brady material,
exculpatory evidence.

1958
01:40:22.950 --> 01:40:26.054
In the U.S. justice process,
it's designed to be

1959
01:40:26.254 --> 01:40:29.657
a full airing of the facts.

1960
01:40:29.824 --> 01:40:32.394
So not only
the incriminating evidence,

1961
01:40:32.594 --> 01:40:34.129
but the exculpatory evidence.

1962
01:40:34.296 --> 01:40:36.698
All of this
is supposed to come forth

1963
01:40:36.864 --> 01:40:39.367
into the judicial process,

1964
01:40:39.534 --> 01:40:45.006
so that there is a free and fair
airing of the facts.

1965
01:40:45.173 --> 01:40:47.875
Sidney Powell, you know,
she was aware

1966
01:40:48.042 --> 01:40:50.545
that the Department of Justice

1967
01:40:50.712 --> 01:40:53.415
was not bringing forth
the Brady material,

1968
01:40:53.615 --> 01:40:56.351
the exculpatory evidence
that they were required to do.

1969
01:40:56.518 --> 01:41:00.322
And it begs the question,
what have they not done?

1970
01:41:00.488 --> 01:41:03.024
You know, it's like,
could it be any more abusive?

1971
01:41:03.691 --> 01:41:06.728
The Department of Justice
Inspector General's report

1972
01:41:06.894 --> 01:41:09.731
on FISA abuse came out
like a couple of days

1973
01:41:09.897 --> 01:41:12.400
after
that 18th December hearing.

1974
01:41:12.567 --> 01:41:18.273
My briefing and debriefing
of DIA from my Russia trip
came out after that.

1975
01:41:18.473 --> 01:41:21.109
I knew about the briefing
and debriefing.

1976
01:41:21.309 --> 01:41:24.679
It was all classified.
So, I'm not, you know, I'm not--

1977
01:41:24.846 --> 01:41:27.249
you know, I'm like, protected.
I let my lawyers know, because

1978
01:41:27.415 --> 01:41:29.684
it's a lawyer-client privilege,
but it's classified,
the fact of what I was doing.

1979
01:41:29.851 --> 01:41:31.719
But now it's public.

1980
01:41:31.919 --> 01:41:33.521
<i>There were
more and more, you know,</i>

1981
01:41:33.721 --> 01:41:35.390
<i>answers to questions
that I had that--</i>

1982
01:41:35.590 --> 01:41:37.892
<i>that started to get
kind of produced</i>

1983
01:41:38.092 --> 01:41:41.696
<i>as Sidney started
digging into--
into my father's case.</i>

1984
01:41:41.896 --> 01:41:44.199
<i>You know, like, for example,</i>

1985
01:41:44.399 --> 01:41:46.334
<i>like the reaction
of the lawyers
from Covington & Burling,</i>

1986
01:41:46.534 --> 01:41:49.471
<i>after my father pled guilty.</i>

1987
01:41:49.671 --> 01:41:51.739
<i>I mean, they were like,
celebrating.</i>

1988
01:41:51.939 --> 01:41:55.243
<i>There's texts of them
talking about--
and emails talking about</i>

1989
01:41:55.410 --> 01:41:57.379
how, like how great of a job
they all did,

1990
01:41:57.545 --> 01:41:59.581
that they were able
to get him to plea.

1991
01:41:59.747 --> 01:42:01.949
You know, it's like
you get one more shot

1992
01:42:02.116 --> 01:42:05.587
at staying above water.

1993
01:42:05.753 --> 01:42:07.722
Sidney convinced him, not only
can we stay above water,

1994
01:42:07.889 --> 01:42:10.458
we can start floating, and maybe
we can get out of this.

1995
01:42:10.625 --> 01:42:12.494
This is a lawless process.

1996
01:42:28.376 --> 01:42:31.112
<i>The bills
were mounting, okay,
because it was--</i>

1997
01:42:31.313 --> 01:42:32.780
<i>and a Special Counsel
had been appointed,</i>

1998
01:42:32.980 --> 01:42:35.183
<i>and so Mike's
now getting called in.</i>

1999
01:42:35.383 --> 01:42:37.952
So, every time you get called in
for a proffer session

2000
01:42:38.119 --> 01:42:39.821
or whatever sessions you have to
have with the Special Counsel,

2001
01:42:39.987 --> 01:42:41.823
you're gonna have
at least one attorney,

2002
01:42:41.989 --> 01:42:44.926
if not several attorneys
available to you.

2003
01:42:45.092 --> 01:42:46.928
So, you're talking about
Washington, DC, attorneys--

2004
01:42:47.094 --> 01:42:50.232
700 dollars.
All of a sudden, you know,

2005
01:42:50.432 --> 01:42:52.600
<i>you go from having
a 20,000-dollar bill</i>

2006
01:42:52.800 --> 01:42:56.037
<i>to a, you know,
350,000-dollar bill</i>

2007
01:42:56.238 --> 01:42:59.807
and, and I think Mike and Lori
knew that, you know,

2008
01:42:59.974 --> 01:43:01.843
if this continues,
they're gonna be bankrupt.

2009
01:43:02.009 --> 01:43:03.845
They're gonna just
destroy them financially.

2010
01:43:07.482 --> 01:43:09.251
<i>They weren't
gonna get much money</i>

2011
01:43:09.451 --> 01:43:11.152
<i>because Mike had already--
selling his house</i>

2012
01:43:11.353 --> 01:43:13.721
<i>to pay the legal fees and,
you know, for that,</i>

2013
01:43:13.921 --> 01:43:16.658
<i>first, you know,
probably five or six months,</i>

2014
01:43:16.858 --> 01:43:19.126
<i>we're talking
300,000 dollars a month.</i>

2015
01:43:19.294 --> 01:43:20.528
And they don't care.

2016
01:43:20.695 --> 01:43:22.397
They just keep
sending you a bill.

2017
01:43:22.597 --> 01:43:24.366
They don't even care
if they send you an invoice.

2018
01:43:25.032 --> 01:43:26.133
<i>So, there was
a moment that</i>

2019
01:43:26.334 --> 01:43:28.135
<i>where I just felt like</i>

2020
01:43:28.336 --> 01:43:31.072
<i>I was literally
deep down underwater,</i>

2021
01:43:31.273 --> 01:43:32.139
and I felt like I was drowning.

2022
01:43:34.509 --> 01:43:37.245
<i>It was an
insurmountable, monumental task</i>

2023
01:43:37.445 --> 01:43:42.350
to raise that money in the face
of having had Mike plead guilty.

2024
01:43:44.719 --> 01:43:47.489
And the rest of the country
going,

2025
01:43:47.655 --> 01:43:50.157
"What the fuck?
How did he plead? Why?"

2026
01:43:50.325 --> 01:43:52.427
His son.

2027
01:43:52.627 --> 01:43:56.831
Young Mike. All right?
So, everybody gets it.

2028
01:43:56.998 --> 01:43:59.233
But the media doesn't
want to carry that message.

2029
01:43:59.401 --> 01:44:01.603
Instead, it's "disgraced
General Michael Flynn."

2030
01:44:01.803 --> 01:44:03.838
<i>And the more
they pushed back on Trump,</i>

2031
01:44:04.005 --> 01:44:05.607
the more people
started to realize

2032
01:44:05.807 --> 01:44:08.009
General Flynn took a hit.

2033
01:44:08.576 --> 01:44:12.747
We ended up having to, um,
start a legal defense fund.

2034
01:44:12.914 --> 01:44:15.917
And, um...

2035
01:44:16.083 --> 01:44:18.786
that in itself was hard
because, you know,

2036
01:44:18.986 --> 01:44:20.021
you're asking people
to give you money

2037
01:44:20.187 --> 01:44:22.056
to defend yourself.

2038
01:44:22.223 --> 01:44:27.295
And we, we were asking
the American people to help us.

2039
01:44:27.495 --> 01:44:30.332
And they came out in droves.

2040
01:44:30.532 --> 01:44:32.500
<i>The American people
started to come into,</i>

2041
01:44:32.700 --> 01:44:34.502
<i>into my life.</i>

2042
01:44:34.702 --> 01:44:37.705
<i>And, and there was a moment
where I just felt like</i>

2043
01:44:37.905 --> 01:44:42.377
<i>air was being breathed
into my lungs.</i>

2044
01:44:42.544 --> 01:44:45.647
Over time,
instead of being pounded down

2045
01:44:45.847 --> 01:44:49.016
below the surface of the ocean,
I started to come up.

2046
01:44:49.216 --> 01:44:51.853
<i>I started to come up.</i>

2047
01:44:52.053 --> 01:44:55.523
<i>In a way, it was like,
I'm now above the surface,</i>

2048
01:44:55.723 --> 01:44:58.025
<i>and I'm starting to
swim to shore.</i>

2049
01:44:58.225 --> 01:45:01.128
<i>I'm really just-- now I'm like,
"Okay, I got this.</i>

2050
01:45:01.295 --> 01:45:02.897
Shore's still
a long distance off,

2051
01:45:03.064 --> 01:45:05.800
but I can see,
I can see the shoreline.

2052
01:45:05.967 --> 01:45:08.736
It's out there."

2053
01:45:08.903 --> 01:45:09.737
And I started to swim for it.

2054
01:45:14.976 --> 01:45:16.944
<i>And these supportive people,</i>

2055
01:45:17.111 --> 01:45:20.482
God knows where they came from,
these American people.

2056
01:45:20.648 --> 01:45:24.419
He calls it buddy breathing.
I've heard him say that.

2057
01:45:24.586 --> 01:45:30.091
Being able to come through
financially,

2058
01:45:30.257 --> 01:45:31.859
with this giant burden
of the federal government

2059
01:45:32.059 --> 01:45:33.127
on his shoulders,

2060
01:45:33.294 --> 01:45:35.530
and be able to support,

2061
01:45:35.730 --> 01:45:39.834
you know, the legal action
that was

2062
01:45:40.001 --> 01:45:43.871
incredibly financially
burdensome to any other person.

2063
01:45:44.071 --> 01:45:47.609
I don't know what you would do,
except end up in jail.

2064
01:45:47.775 --> 01:45:51.178
We had to outsmart
the FBI, the CIA, the DOJ.

2065
01:45:51.345 --> 01:45:52.780
We had to become our own--

2066
01:45:52.947 --> 01:45:55.717
the Flynn family
became investigators.

2067
01:45:55.917 --> 01:45:59.186
We had to read every document,
and we had to look deeper,

2068
01:45:59.353 --> 01:46:02.156
and we had so many great people
started helping us.

2069
01:46:02.323 --> 01:46:04.158
Once they saw that
we weren't going to stop,

2070
01:46:04.325 --> 01:46:05.493
that we were going to fight,

2071
01:46:05.693 --> 01:46:06.994
<i>we were getting letters,</i>

2072
01:46:07.194 --> 01:46:10.398
<i>like hundreds of letters
every week.</i>

2073
01:46:10.598 --> 01:46:12.500
Just when we were
getting like to a low,

2074
01:46:12.667 --> 01:46:14.902
Barbara would,
there would be a FedEx box

2075
01:46:15.102 --> 01:46:18.339
coming to the door with like,
hundreds of letters,

2076
01:46:18.506 --> 01:46:22.009
hundreds of cards,
rosary beads; you know,

2077
01:46:22.176 --> 01:46:23.310
little things
to just make our life

2078
01:46:24.211 --> 01:46:26.347
<i>a little bit more pleasant.</i>

2079
01:46:26.548 --> 01:46:28.650
<i>We would take them out
and read them,</i>

2080
01:46:28.850 --> 01:46:30.017
<i>and we would say,
"This is what it's all about.</i>

2081
01:46:30.217 --> 01:46:31.953
<i>This is what real America is."</i>

2082
01:46:32.153 --> 01:46:35.156
<i>These people are, you know,</i>

2083
01:46:35.322 --> 01:46:37.692
talking about things
that happened to them
with their families, you know,

2084
01:46:37.859 --> 01:46:39.226
my husband, or my son
or my brother, my--

2085
01:46:39.393 --> 01:46:41.362
this happened to them
when they did this.

2086
01:46:41.529 --> 01:46:43.364
And it was really cathartic
to read all those letters.

2087
01:46:43.531 --> 01:46:45.199
It was a great thing
to look forward to.

2088
01:46:45.366 --> 01:46:47.802
Like every other week,
we would get a big box.

2089
01:46:48.002 --> 01:46:50.505
<i>And we amassed probably</i>

2090
01:46:50.705 --> 01:46:53.374
<i>seven or eight big
Rubbermaid bins of them,</i>

2091
01:46:53.575 --> 01:46:57.945
<i>and Mike would sit down
after every box we got
and wrote a thank-you note</i>

2092
01:46:58.145 --> 01:46:59.280
<i>to every single one
of those people.</i>

2093
01:46:59.481 --> 01:47:01.949
And some of them
became pen pals.

2094
01:47:02.149 --> 01:47:04.251
They would write him back,
and he would have to
write them back.

2095
01:47:04.418 --> 01:47:10.091
And it was kind of
a neat thing, really,
but it was sort of his, I think,

2096
01:47:10.257 --> 01:47:12.059
way to get through it too,
you know?

2097
01:47:12.226 --> 01:47:13.961
He would read something,
and he'd say,

2098
01:47:14.161 --> 01:47:15.863
"You got to read this letter,"
and--

2099
01:47:16.063 --> 01:47:17.532
<i>or I'd read it and,
"You got to read this letter."</i>

2100
01:47:17.732 --> 01:47:19.333
<i>And they were just
great, great letters.</i>

2101
01:47:19.534 --> 01:47:22.403
<i>Tearjerkers, a lot of them.
But it was--</i>

2102
01:47:22.604 --> 01:47:25.540
<i>it really did open
our eyes to what America</i>

2103
01:47:25.707 --> 01:47:27.642
really knows about what's
going on with his case,

2104
01:47:27.842 --> 01:47:30.044
because they came
from everywhere.

2105
01:47:30.211 --> 01:47:34.115
Some of them overseas,
you know, so it was, um,

2106
01:47:34.281 --> 01:47:36.651
it got us through a lot of
the tough, tough times.

2107
01:47:36.851 --> 01:47:38.720
It really did.

2108
01:47:38.886 --> 01:47:40.622
Is it true he went to
the 99 cents store he loves?

2109
01:47:41.956 --> 01:47:43.725
Tell me about that.

2110
01:47:43.891 --> 01:47:45.059
Well, it's not
99 cents store anymore.

2111
01:47:45.226 --> 01:47:47.729
Now it's $1.25.

2112
01:47:47.895 --> 01:47:49.597
But yes, we would go in there,

2113
01:47:49.764 --> 01:47:51.733
he would get this
like cards for a dollar,

2114
01:47:51.899 --> 01:47:53.601
and you could get
like a pack of eight

2115
01:47:53.768 --> 01:47:55.803
or a pack of 12 for a buck.
So why not?

2116
01:47:55.970 --> 01:47:58.072
We just put about
as many as we could in the cart.

2117
01:47:58.239 --> 01:48:00.842
You know, we always got the ones
that had the American flag
on them.

2118
01:48:01.042 --> 01:48:02.744
But he'd go through them
so fast.

2119
01:48:02.910 --> 01:48:04.478
I ended up having to order them
from somewhere else

2120
01:48:04.646 --> 01:48:06.347
so we can get like a pack of 50.

2121
01:48:06.548 --> 01:48:08.750
I think it says a lot
about what the American people

2122
01:48:08.916 --> 01:48:11.352
were wanting out of this.

2123
01:48:11.553 --> 01:48:14.589
They were looking at this as,
as this is their fight.

2124
01:48:14.789 --> 01:48:17.258
<i>What Flynn's going through,
what the Flynn family's
going through</i>

2125
01:48:17.458 --> 01:48:19.727
<i>is the fight of
the common American people</i>

2126
01:48:19.927 --> 01:48:23.130
<i>against a broken,
corrupt justice system.</i>

2127
01:48:23.330 --> 01:48:26.133
<i>Many families have
dealt with broken, corrupt</i>

2128
01:48:26.333 --> 01:48:28.670
<i>justice system situations.</i>

2129
01:48:28.836 --> 01:48:31.773
And many people empathized
with that and saw--

2130
01:48:31.939 --> 01:48:33.541
they realized that we weren't
some wealthy family,

2131
01:48:33.741 --> 01:48:35.176
West Point grads.

2132
01:48:35.342 --> 01:48:37.178
We were a bunch
of street kids, okay,

2133
01:48:37.344 --> 01:48:39.547
and just happened to be
in this situation

2134
01:48:39.747 --> 01:48:42.183
and having to band together
to fight against this,

2135
01:48:42.349 --> 01:48:43.718
to fight against
this absolute evil.

2136
01:48:48.690 --> 01:48:50.257
<i>First of all,
you got to understand</i>

2137
01:48:50.457 --> 01:48:51.659
<i>a little bit
about who Jeff Jensen is.</i>

2138
01:48:51.859 --> 01:48:53.327
<i>He's a former FBI agent,</i>

2139
01:48:53.527 --> 01:48:56.297
<i>who then became
a line prosecutor,</i>

2140
01:48:56.497 --> 01:49:00.968
<i>who then became
a United States attorney.</i>

2141
01:49:01.168 --> 01:49:04.672
<i>So, he's somebody
who fully understood</i>

2142
01:49:04.839 --> 01:49:07.809
the workings of the FBI

2143
01:49:07.975 --> 01:49:12.179
and the workings of
the Department of Justice.

2144
01:49:12.346 --> 01:49:16.684
So, he's not someone
that the bureaucrats

2145
01:49:16.884 --> 01:49:20.321
<i>could hide stuff from using
their bureaucratic tricks.</i>

2146
01:49:22.857 --> 01:49:23.925
<i>And the most important...</i>

2147
01:49:26.193 --> 01:49:32.066
document that was written
as a result of his investigation

2148
01:49:32.700 --> 01:49:36.804
<i>was on May 7, 2020,</i>

2149
01:49:37.004 --> 01:49:40.174
<i>when the government moved
to dismiss the Flynn case.</i>

2150
01:49:46.147 --> 01:49:48.950
<i>Nah, nah, nah.
Not so quick.</i>

2151
01:49:49.150 --> 01:49:51.653
<i>Time for Emmet Sullivan
to go after Flynn.</i>

2152
01:49:51.853 --> 01:49:55.690
<i>Even if the prosecutors have
stopped prosecuting Flynn,</i>

2153
01:49:55.857 --> 01:50:00.628
it's time for now the judge to
prosecute General Michael Flynn.

2154
01:50:00.828 --> 01:50:03.397
That's really weird.
That's really twisted.

2155
01:50:03.564 --> 01:50:05.132
There was no reason
for them to do what they did

2156
01:50:05.332 --> 01:50:08.936
in the first place.
It was political.

2157
01:50:09.103 --> 01:50:14.008
It was a hit job by the former
Obama administration

2158
01:50:14.208 --> 01:50:18.880
<i>on the incoming administration,
and he targeted Flynn</i>

2159
01:50:19.080 --> 01:50:20.815
<i>because they felt that
that was going to be a spot,</i>

2160
01:50:21.015 --> 01:50:23.384
<i>especially with Russia,
because he had,</i>

2161
01:50:23.584 --> 01:50:24.919
<i>he sat at that table
with Putin one time,</i>

2162
01:50:25.119 --> 01:50:27.889
<i>which is in our family a joke.</i>

2163
01:50:28.055 --> 01:50:29.957
Michael, if he was told
to shoot Putin

2164
01:50:30.124 --> 01:50:33.227
in the head that day,
would have done it.

2165
01:50:33.394 --> 01:50:37.732
Because he's a soldier,
always first.

2166
01:50:37.899 --> 01:50:40.434
If his job was to get there
and shoot Putin in the head,

2167
01:50:40.601 --> 01:50:41.769
he'd've done it.

2168
01:50:44.405 --> 01:50:47.108
There's something else
that's part of the story

2169
01:50:47.274 --> 01:50:53.247
that I don't know has been told
that I think needs to be told.

2170
01:50:53.414 --> 01:50:59.987
And that is, President Trump
offered a pardon

2171
01:51:00.154 --> 01:51:04.158
in the spring of 2020,
before the government's
motion to dismiss,

2172
01:51:04.325 --> 01:51:10.932
and actually before most of the
exculpatory information
had come out.

2173
01:51:11.098 --> 01:51:13.701
General Flynn
had an opportunity then

2174
01:51:13.901 --> 01:51:17.638
to put all this behind him.
But he didn't want the pardon.

2175
01:51:17.805 --> 01:51:20.141
He wanted to be fully vindicated

2176
01:51:20.307 --> 01:51:22.076
through the government's
motion to dismiss.

2177
01:51:22.276 --> 01:51:29.283
<i>And Sidney had the guts
to tell the president,</i>

2178
01:51:30.617 --> 01:51:32.253
<i>"Thank you very much,
but this time,</i>

2179
01:51:32.453 --> 01:51:37.358
<i>we're gonna keep fighting."
As a result of, of that,</i>

2180
01:51:37.524 --> 01:51:44.531
the full exposure of
the government's misconduct

2181
01:51:45.099 --> 01:51:47.301
against General Flynn
came to light.

2182
01:51:47.468 --> 01:51:53.340
But everything that came out
probably wouldn't have unless

2183
01:51:53.507 --> 01:51:58.079
General Flynn
had the courage to say,

2184
01:51:58.279 --> 01:52:01.148
"I don't want a pardon yet,
I want to fight."

2185
01:52:01.315 --> 01:52:02.850
I'm really proud
to be on a legal team

2186
01:52:03.017 --> 01:52:05.052
that supported him in that.

2187
01:52:05.219 --> 01:52:06.553
Had anybody heard that?

2188
01:52:06.720 --> 01:52:07.521
I don't think so.

2189
01:52:10.792 --> 01:52:13.828
I had to get permission
from the client to tell it.

2190
01:52:13.995 --> 01:52:17.264
We were praying to God that
we didn't have to use a pardon.

2191
01:52:17.464 --> 01:52:22.269
But I knew
that Sullivan was waiting

2192
01:52:22.469 --> 01:52:24.505
for the election to come,
and if Biden had won,

2193
01:52:24.671 --> 01:52:26.340
which he did,

2194
01:52:26.507 --> 01:52:28.575
and my husband hadn't gotten
pardoned from Trump,

2195
01:52:28.742 --> 01:52:31.012
they would have somehow
figured out a way

2196
01:52:31.178 --> 01:52:34.748
to rescind any kind of dismissal

2197
01:52:34.916 --> 01:52:37.518
and take him back into court
and retry him or whatever.

2198
01:52:37.684 --> 01:52:40.387
I knew that was
what his plan was.

2199
01:52:40.554 --> 01:52:43.224
That's how vindictive
that judge was.

2200
01:52:43.390 --> 01:52:46.794
And I was grateful,
but I was also sad

2201
01:52:46.994 --> 01:52:49.063
because it should have
never came to that.

2202
01:52:49.230 --> 01:52:52.566
My husband didn't need a pardon.
He didn't do anything wrong.

2203
01:52:52.733 --> 01:52:54.101
And so, the pardon
is kind of one of those things

2204
01:52:54.268 --> 01:52:55.469
where it's a little bit
bittersweet.

2205
01:53:06.580 --> 01:53:09.416
Okay,
inside this little box is a--

2206
01:53:09.583 --> 01:53:12.153
the original pardon of innocence
given to General Michael Flynn

2207
01:53:12.353 --> 01:53:16.824
by Donald Trump
in November of 2020.

2208
01:53:17.024 --> 01:53:20.161
<i>Again, an unprecedented
event in American history</i>

2209
01:53:20.361 --> 01:53:23.030
<i>where someone has given--
been given a presidential
pardon</i>

2210
01:53:23.230 --> 01:53:25.532
<i>who is innocent of the charges</i>

2211
01:53:25.732 --> 01:53:29.103
<i>because the charges were
dropped by the Department of
Justice.</i>

2212
01:53:29.270 --> 01:53:31.505
So, there was no reason
for the pardon anyway.

2213
01:53:31.705 --> 01:53:33.640
And that's why he called it
a pardon of innocence

2214
01:53:33.807 --> 01:53:37.411
because he had to
pardon an innocent man

2215
01:53:37.578 --> 01:53:41.582
because the system
would not let go.

2216
01:53:41.748 --> 01:53:44.018
It's extraordinary...
and unprecedented.

2217
01:53:48.055 --> 01:53:51.092
And your brother
has never opened that?

2218
01:53:51.258 --> 01:53:52.193
Apparently not.

2219
01:53:56.597 --> 01:53:59.066
<i>He says, "You know,
the only person in--</i>

2220
01:53:59.266 --> 01:54:02.769
<i>in Washington, DC,
who's been screwed worse</i>

2221
01:54:02.937 --> 01:54:05.506
than you is probably me."

2222
01:54:05.672 --> 01:54:07.441
And I said,
"No, Mister President, I-- "

2223
01:54:07.608 --> 01:54:09.376
you know, I said, "I'm not
so sure that's the case,

2224
01:54:09.576 --> 01:54:10.945
because I've--
you know, sitting here today,

2225
01:54:11.112 --> 01:54:12.679
I feel pretty screwed,"
you know.

2226
01:54:12.846 --> 01:54:16.383
And we were joking for a minute,
banter back and forth,

2227
01:54:16.583 --> 01:54:18.852
and, you know, just about that.

2228
01:54:19.020 --> 01:54:20.687
And he goes, "Well, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna issue a pardon.

2229
01:54:20.854 --> 01:54:22.189
I just want you to know
that, you know,

2230
01:54:22.356 --> 01:54:24.225
this should end anything."

2231
01:54:24.425 --> 01:54:28.329
He goes, he goes, "Now you're
the cleanest man in America."

2232
01:54:28.495 --> 01:54:30.697
He goes, "There's nobody
cleaner than you after this,

2233
01:54:30.864 --> 01:54:33.901
after this pardon," you know.

2234
01:54:34.101 --> 01:54:41.042
That was November 2020,
so, you know, three years plus.

2235
01:54:42.643 --> 01:54:44.912
Did you harbor
some resentment towards Trump?

2236
01:54:45.112 --> 01:54:46.847
Uh, I did. I did it.

2237
01:54:47.014 --> 01:54:50.651
Initially, I did,
because he was not kind to me.

2238
01:54:50.817 --> 01:54:52.753
I mean, he said some
nasty things about me

2239
01:54:52.954 --> 01:54:55.722
after I left, you know,
called me a liar.

2240
01:54:56.690 --> 01:54:59.260
In fairness, because
it was something

2241
01:54:59.460 --> 01:55:01.895
that I did see in him,
was that he really didn't know,

2242
01:55:02.063 --> 01:55:04.698
he didn't know the ways
of Washington, DC.

2243
01:55:04.865 --> 01:55:05.732
He really didn't.

2244
01:55:09.136 --> 01:55:12.139
<i>To this day,
nobody has ever gone on record</i>

2245
01:55:12.339 --> 01:55:14.375
<i>and said what the DOJ
was going to go</i>

2246
01:55:14.575 --> 01:55:17.844
<i>after Michael Flynn Jr. for.</i>

2247
01:55:18.045 --> 01:55:20.481
<i>I would assume likely
the same thing they went</i>

2248
01:55:20.681 --> 01:55:24.318
<i>after the business
partners for, FARA violations.</i>

2249
01:55:24.518 --> 01:55:27.888
<i>Just recently, the government
has dropped the case</i>

2250
01:55:28.089 --> 01:55:29.556
<i>against General Flynn's
business partner</i>

2251
01:55:29.756 --> 01:55:31.525
<i>at the Flynn Intel Group.</i>

2252
01:55:31.725 --> 01:55:35.162
<i>Once the jury in DC came back
with a guilty verdict,</i>

2253
01:55:35.362 --> 01:55:37.564
<i>Judge Trenga overturned
that verdict</i>

2254
01:55:37.764 --> 01:55:40.067
<i>due to lack of evidence
in the case</i>

2255
01:55:40.267 --> 01:55:43.137
<i>because there is none.</i>

2256
01:55:43.337 --> 01:55:46.773
<i>There is no evidence
that proves any of the things
that the DOJ was advancing.</i>

2257
01:55:48.275 --> 01:55:51.745
Barack Obama, right?

2258
01:55:51.912 --> 01:55:53.147
July 14th,

2259
01:55:53.347 --> 01:55:55.282
They extend-- so that's 2014.

2260
01:55:55.449 --> 01:55:57.784
A year and a half later,
these bastards
got me under investigation.

2261
01:55:57.951 --> 01:56:00.787
You know, "I extend
my sincere thanks,"

2262
01:56:00.954 --> 01:56:03.024
you know?

2263
01:56:03.224 --> 01:56:05.559
<i>I want more people,
even if they don't say,</i>

2264
01:56:05.759 --> 01:56:08.429
<i>"I like that guy.
I'm on his team now,"</i>

2265
01:56:08.595 --> 01:56:11.165
I want them to, to understand
what happened,

2266
01:56:11.365 --> 01:56:13.067
to understand
what happened to him,

2267
01:56:13.234 --> 01:56:14.501
and to be able to
at least give him

2268
01:56:14.701 --> 01:56:17.304
the respect he deserves,

2269
01:56:17.471 --> 01:56:19.940
even if they don't
agree with him.

2270
01:56:20.107 --> 01:56:24.945
That is,
is the bare minimum, um,

2271
01:56:25.112 --> 01:56:30.184
and learning from him
and his story will go a long way

2272
01:56:30.384 --> 01:56:32.353
to getting through
all the other issues

2273
01:56:32.553 --> 01:56:35.589
that we have right now, because
it is the light switch.

2274
01:56:35.756 --> 01:56:38.459
If you understand
what happened to him,

2275
01:56:38.625 --> 01:56:41.795
you start to peel back
the curtain on everything.

2276
01:56:41.962 --> 01:56:44.965
I think the General Flynn story

2277
01:56:45.132 --> 01:56:48.302
is actually
the foundational story

2278
01:56:48.469 --> 01:56:52.639
that America needs to
understand the truth of

2279
01:56:52.806 --> 01:56:57.211
to be able to understand
what has occurred
within our government,

2280
01:56:57.411 --> 01:57:00.214
<i>and the mounting corruption
since then.</i>

2281
01:57:00.414 --> 01:57:03.050
<i>If they can learn
something</i>

2282
01:57:03.250 --> 01:57:07.854
from what Michael went through,
to believe in this country

2283
01:57:08.021 --> 01:57:12.226
under, under extreme and
extraordinary circumstances

2284
01:57:12.426 --> 01:57:14.895
and still come through
the other side,

2285
01:57:15.096 --> 01:57:18.865
and not give up on America,
that's what they need to learn

2286
01:57:19.032 --> 01:57:24.205
from what this documentary
can portray him.

2287
01:57:24.371 --> 01:57:27.374
It is, in fact, the truth.

2288
01:57:27.541 --> 01:57:31.878
He will not stop fighting
for this republic.

2289
01:57:32.846 --> 01:57:35.182
For this, what he calls, experiment.

2290
01:57:35.382 --> 01:57:37.118
<i>My mother
and father would be so proud</i>

2291
01:57:37.318 --> 01:57:39.820
<i>because he's the only person
that could've withstood.</i>

2292
01:57:40.020 --> 01:57:44.191
<i>They knew... they knew
that he was the only one.</i>

2293
01:57:44.391 --> 01:57:47.294
<i>He was-- he was
meant for this time.</i>

2294
01:57:47.494 --> 01:57:50.631
<i>He's the only person
that could've withstood</i>

2295
01:57:50.831 --> 01:57:54.468
<i>this type of,
you know, this evil,</i>

2296
01:57:54.668 --> 01:57:57.003
<i>this unfathomable
domestic evil</i>

2297
01:57:57.204 --> 01:57:59.540
<i>that we're facing--
and beat it too.</i>

2298
01:57:59.706 --> 01:58:01.675
It-- it's very hard
not to get jaded

2299
01:58:01.842 --> 01:58:03.510
and turned off and just say,
"I'm just gonna go away."

2300
01:58:03.677 --> 01:58:05.212
Mike Flynn is not
going to do that.

2301
01:58:05.379 --> 01:58:07.214
Mike Flynn is, I think
people need to understand,

2302
01:58:07.381 --> 01:58:09.283
he's going to be there
fighting for them.

2303
01:58:09.483 --> 01:58:11.118
<i>Maybe not as
an elected official,</i>

2304
01:58:11.318 --> 01:58:13.354
<i>but certainly
as a public person,</i>

2305
01:58:13.520 --> 01:58:17.891
as a, as a, as a veteran,
as a father, as a grandfather.

2306
01:58:18.058 --> 01:58:20.294
He's going to be out there
swinging at the fences

2307
01:58:20.494 --> 01:58:23.697
to try to bring sanity
back to this country.

2308
01:58:23.864 --> 01:58:26.700
Because... we are
going off the rails.

2309
01:58:26.867 --> 01:58:28.235
This country is going
off the rails

2310
01:58:28.402 --> 01:58:31.305
in many, in many
different directions.

2311
01:58:31.505 --> 01:58:34.107
Economically, militarily,
and socially,

2312
01:58:34.275 --> 01:58:37.077
we are in a bad place right now,
and I think people--

2313
01:58:37.244 --> 01:58:39.546
people want hope,
people need hope,

2314
01:58:39.746 --> 01:58:41.882
<i>and more importantly,
people need warriors,</i>

2315
01:58:42.082 --> 01:58:44.951
<i>and I think you're gonna
get that from General Flynn.</i>

2316
01:58:45.118 --> 01:58:48.121
Again, the most important
stories about this

2317
01:58:48.289 --> 01:58:50.657
are not the stories
about the bad things

2318
01:58:50.857 --> 01:58:52.926
that people have done, right,

2319
01:58:53.093 --> 01:58:55.929
about the evil
that these people have done,

2320
01:58:56.096 --> 01:58:59.132
the way these people have
tried to destroy family--

2321
01:58:59.300 --> 01:59:02.936
families, and the way that
they've corrupted the country.

2322
01:59:03.103 --> 01:59:06.106
No, the most important thing
is to go to the other side
and look at what happened.

2323
01:59:06.273 --> 01:59:08.242
I mean, look at
all these things.

2324
01:59:08.442 --> 01:59:11.044
<i>I mean, look at how,
how it's made them,</i>

2325
01:59:11.245 --> 01:59:14.748
<i>how it's made them brighter,
and stronger, right.</i>

2326
01:59:14.948 --> 01:59:18.752
<i>People, I mean,
people look to their family,</i>

2327
01:59:18.919 --> 01:59:20.954
look to that family,
as an example.

2328
01:59:21.121 --> 01:59:22.523
It's like, "Well, if the Flynns
went through this,

2329
01:59:22.723 --> 01:59:24.591
then we can certainly
get through it."

2330
01:59:24.791 --> 01:59:27.194
<i>You know, "If, wow,
they did that to General Flynn,</i>

2331
01:59:29.663 --> 01:59:32.566
<i>I guess I can get
through this."
You know, and he's okay.</i>

2332
01:59:32.766 --> 01:59:34.100
<i>He got through it
with faith and his family.</i>

2333
01:59:34.301 --> 01:59:36.169
<i>He got through it.</i>

2334
01:59:36.337 --> 01:59:38.372
The Flynns pulled together,

2335
01:59:38.572 --> 01:59:40.807
the American people
can pull together.

2336
01:59:40.974 --> 01:59:47.214
Because if we pull together,
and we drive this darkness out,

2337
01:59:47.414 --> 01:59:49.450
then we can touch
the whole world.

2338
01:59:49.616 --> 01:59:51.385
We can touch the whole world.

2339
01:59:51.585 --> 01:59:53.954
I think
that General Flynn's story

2340
01:59:54.120 --> 01:59:57.524
is an inspiring story
because he wasn't broken.

2341
01:59:57.691 --> 01:59:59.793
And as he will say readily,
he wasn't broken

2342
01:59:59.960 --> 02:00:02.329
because of the love
of his family

2343
02:00:02.496 --> 02:00:03.530
and because of his faith.

2344
02:00:05.599 --> 02:00:08.235
General Flynn found himself
in a circumstance

2345
02:00:08.435 --> 02:00:10.003
he did not anticipate at all.

2346
02:00:10.170 --> 02:00:12.373
This is not the life
he prepared for at all.

2347
02:00:12.539 --> 02:00:14.241
He's not a political figure,
he's not even a Republican.

2348
02:00:14.441 --> 02:00:15.709
Not politically active.

2349
02:00:18.144 --> 02:00:21.482
I don't think he ever
expected to find himself

2350
02:00:21.648 --> 02:00:24.017
in the fulcrum of history.

2351
02:00:24.184 --> 02:00:25.819
And I know
he never expected himself

2352
02:00:25.986 --> 02:00:27.754
to be persecuted
by his own government

2353
02:00:27.954 --> 02:00:30.724
that he had served for
the course of his entire life.

2354
02:00:30.891 --> 02:00:33.026
But all of that happened,
and these things do happen.

2355
02:00:33.193 --> 02:00:37.097
We can't know our future.
None of it is known.

2356
02:00:37.298 --> 02:00:39.032
I have some sense of what
I'm having for dinner tonight.

2357
02:00:39.199 --> 02:00:42.269
Beyond that, it's opaque.
And that's true for all of us.

2358
02:00:42.469 --> 02:00:43.904
And we all could wind up
in a situation like that,

2359
02:00:44.070 --> 02:00:45.572
and the only thing
that we can hope for

2360
02:00:45.739 --> 02:00:47.341
is the strength to continue
to tell the truth

2361
02:00:47.508 --> 02:00:49.042
in the face of adversity,

2362
02:00:49.209 --> 02:00:51.845
and to be surrounded by people
we love who support us,

2363
02:00:52.012 --> 02:00:54.415
and to come out
on the other end whole.

2364
02:00:54.581 --> 02:00:56.049
And he's achieved all of that.

2365
02:00:56.216 --> 02:00:58.285
And so, I see his story
as a great victory,

2366
02:00:58.485 --> 02:00:59.786
actually as a triumph.

2367
02:00:59.986 --> 02:01:01.622
He's still whole.

2368
02:01:01.822 --> 02:01:03.424
He's wounded
by what happened to him,

2369
02:01:03.590 --> 02:01:05.392
his family's wounded
by what happened to him,

2370
02:01:05.559 --> 02:01:08.362
but he's not broken.
He still has dignity.

2371
02:01:08.529 --> 02:01:11.565
And he still has an unwavering
commitment to tell the truth.

2372
02:01:11.732 --> 02:01:13.233
You may not agree with him,
but he's not lying to you.

2373
02:01:13.400 --> 02:01:15.068
He's saying what
he really thinks.

2374
02:01:15.235 --> 02:01:16.870
And if you come out
of a situation like the one

2375
02:01:17.037 --> 02:01:20.407
he lived through
with that intact, you've won.

2376
02:01:22.042 --> 02:01:23.944
Is there any regrets
that you have in life?

2377
02:01:24.110 --> 02:01:26.380
Right?

2378
02:01:26.547 --> 02:01:28.081
And-- and for what
I've experienced,

2379
02:01:28.248 --> 02:01:30.250
I-- I should sit here and say,

2380
02:01:30.417 --> 02:01:33.286
"I got a lot of f--
I got a lot of regrets."

2381
02:01:33.454 --> 02:01:37.591
Um, but when I look back
on my life,

2382
02:01:37.758 --> 02:01:40.561
and I understand the lives
that were lost...

2383
02:01:44.064 --> 02:01:46.833
I mean, I'm sitting here
with you, and I'm like--

2384
02:01:47.033 --> 02:01:48.902
Phew!

2385
02:01:49.069 --> 02:01:52.939
I'm like, you know, I'm here,
and I can tell my story.