1 00:00:01,835 --> 00:00:03,671 [Aquidneck Island Productions introductory theme] 2 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 3 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 4 00:00:16,284 --> 00:00:18,952 [faint cawing of seagulls] 5 00:00:21,289 --> 00:00:23,057 [Flynn] Water has always been a big part of our-- 6 00:00:23,257 --> 00:00:25,126 of our lives in the Flynn family. 7 00:00:25,859 --> 00:00:28,196 We all grew up surfing, we all grew up around the ocean. 8 00:00:30,331 --> 00:00:32,133 If you don't respect the ocean, 9 00:00:32,300 --> 00:00:35,636 if you don't have a respect for this, this, this thing, 10 00:00:35,836 --> 00:00:40,474 which is alive, the ocean is alive. 11 00:00:40,641 --> 00:00:42,576 [blowing bubbles] 12 00:00:48,849 --> 00:00:51,419 I went into the service because I love our country. 13 00:00:51,619 --> 00:00:57,024 [choral music playing] 14 00:01:06,400 --> 00:01:09,537 [Devin] He was one of the most respected generals in the military. 15 00:01:13,541 --> 00:01:15,943 [Flynn] And I come home, and I find out 16 00:01:16,144 --> 00:01:19,012 that the worst enemy that I'm going to face in my life 17 00:01:19,213 --> 00:01:21,249 is right here in America. 18 00:01:21,415 --> 00:01:23,384 [somber music playing] 19 00:01:23,484 --> 00:01:26,687 [reporter] President Obama said, "But I do have one specific recommendation. 20 00:01:26,887 --> 00:01:29,690 Stay away from Michael Flynn. He's bad news." 21 00:01:30,591 --> 00:01:33,127 [somber music keeps playing] 22 00:01:38,766 --> 00:01:42,470 They're calling me a traitor. They're saying I committed treason. 23 00:01:42,670 --> 00:01:43,937 They're saying I'm a Russian spy. 24 00:01:44,672 --> 00:01:47,107 That Obama was involved in the targeting of Flynn. 25 00:01:47,308 --> 00:01:49,310 [reporter] He was, by definition, 26 00:01:49,510 --> 00:01:52,146 the most dangerous possible person. 27 00:01:52,346 --> 00:01:55,883 - I had to fire... - [overlapping chatter] 28 00:01:59,587 --> 00:02:02,290 [choral music playing] 29 00:02:03,591 --> 00:02:06,494 There was a moment where I just felt like I was drowning. 30 00:02:06,694 --> 00:02:10,931 And all of a sudden, a whole series of things started happening. 31 00:02:11,098 --> 00:02:13,767 [choral music keeps playing] 32 00:02:18,806 --> 00:02:21,475 [Flynn] I actually feel blessed to be alive right now. 33 00:02:21,642 --> 00:02:23,311 And I can tell my story. 34 00:02:23,477 --> 00:02:27,181 [emotional music playing] 35 00:02:41,395 --> 00:02:44,465 If we're going to war, that means we failed. 36 00:02:45,299 --> 00:02:48,669 That's the-- that's the fascinating thing about war. 37 00:02:48,836 --> 00:02:53,140 It is a absolute failure of policy. 38 00:02:53,307 --> 00:02:57,278 It's a failure of diplomacy. It's a failure of leadership. 39 00:02:57,445 --> 00:03:00,781 [bombs exploding] 40 00:03:00,948 --> 00:03:02,783 [insidious sound playing] 41 00:03:02,983 --> 00:03:05,753 [Flynn] Probably one of the greatest sacrifices 42 00:03:05,953 --> 00:03:09,657 is when one lays down their life for this country 43 00:03:09,857 --> 00:03:12,593 for reasons that they don't even understand, 44 00:03:12,793 --> 00:03:15,162 and they do it 45 00:03:15,363 --> 00:03:18,266 trying to help people that don't even care if they're there. 46 00:03:18,466 --> 00:03:21,502 And... and they're dead. 47 00:03:23,671 --> 00:03:28,409 We are A-plus, gold star for participating in war. 48 00:03:30,043 --> 00:03:32,145 We are a failure at winning wars. 49 00:03:32,313 --> 00:03:34,448 [menacing music playing] 50 00:03:34,648 --> 00:03:38,252 [Flynn] Peace is the aberration and war is the norm. 51 00:03:40,488 --> 00:03:44,425 No matter how many times I've deployed 52 00:03:44,625 --> 00:03:47,428 to different places where there was some aspect of danger, 53 00:03:47,628 --> 00:03:49,697 you always feel a sense of fear. 54 00:03:49,897 --> 00:03:53,200 Your experiences help you overcome that, 55 00:03:53,401 --> 00:03:55,736 but you never are without it. 56 00:03:55,936 --> 00:03:58,706 - [tank fires] - [Flynn] You know, coming off of a truck 57 00:03:58,906 --> 00:04:01,041 or getting off of a helicopter or getting off of a plane 58 00:04:01,241 --> 00:04:03,611 in a place where you can smell... 59 00:04:04,678 --> 00:04:05,879 death. 60 00:04:06,079 --> 00:04:08,282 You can smell fear. 61 00:04:10,718 --> 00:04:12,353 War is like this massive racket. 62 00:04:14,355 --> 00:04:16,790 I mean, we are at war constantly. 63 00:04:17,558 --> 00:04:19,192 At the end of the day, it's about making money. 64 00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:21,061 [tank fires] 65 00:04:21,228 --> 00:04:22,896 [music fades] 66 00:04:25,098 --> 00:04:27,901 [lights clicking] 67 00:04:28,068 --> 00:04:30,704 [soft music playing] 68 00:04:50,223 --> 00:04:52,826 [director] Sound's rolling, all three cameras. We're good. 69 00:04:53,026 --> 00:04:54,061 [producer] I need speed. 70 00:04:55,262 --> 00:04:58,532 Okay. We're ready when you are. 71 00:04:58,732 --> 00:05:03,170 [Flynn] I had just taken command of a battalion 72 00:05:03,371 --> 00:05:06,774 of about between 500 and 600 people, 73 00:05:06,874 --> 00:05:09,042 and my operations NCO comes in and says, 74 00:05:09,242 --> 00:05:13,280 "Hey, sir, we just had a helicopter go down." 75 00:05:13,447 --> 00:05:16,283 This is where I really learned about being steady. 76 00:05:18,218 --> 00:05:21,689 Because when I think about that, I mean, nine people. Poof. 77 00:05:22,390 --> 00:05:26,827 So as I'm walking up the road, I-- I see the smoke, 78 00:05:26,994 --> 00:05:28,862 and I look, and I walked right up to it. 79 00:05:29,062 --> 00:05:31,765 I mean, I was standing right next to it. 80 00:05:31,932 --> 00:05:37,705 And... and it was just one black patch 81 00:05:37,905 --> 00:05:40,340 that was like the outline of a helicopter. 82 00:05:41,274 --> 00:05:44,945 Just a black patch in the-- on the ground, 83 00:05:45,112 --> 00:05:49,349 all burnt up, with a bunch of bumps. Okay? 84 00:05:49,517 --> 00:05:51,652 Bumps that were probably no more than, 85 00:05:51,819 --> 00:05:55,188 like, two feet high, okay, and those were the bodies. 86 00:05:55,355 --> 00:05:59,527 And, you know, obviously, the, the smell of the fuel 87 00:05:59,693 --> 00:06:02,029 that was burning, the bodies that had burned. 88 00:06:02,195 --> 00:06:03,531 And so, there they are. 89 00:06:03,697 --> 00:06:06,233 They're just... you're standing right there, 90 00:06:06,434 --> 00:06:09,570 you're standing there going, "Holy crap." 91 00:06:09,770 --> 00:06:12,773 On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking 92 00:06:12,973 --> 00:06:15,308 selected targets of military importance 93 00:06:15,509 --> 00:06:18,879 to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war. 94 00:06:19,046 --> 00:06:22,850 [dramatic music playing] 95 00:06:23,050 --> 00:06:24,985 [man] When war broke out in Iraq, 96 00:06:25,152 --> 00:06:27,988 I was sort of like, well, I guess we have to do this. 97 00:06:28,155 --> 00:06:29,857 But hold on a second. 98 00:06:30,023 --> 00:06:32,893 I didn't see, I didn't connect the dots 99 00:06:33,060 --> 00:06:34,528 as to the reason why we didn't-- 100 00:06:34,695 --> 00:06:37,264 we would invade a sovereign nation like Iraq. 101 00:06:37,465 --> 00:06:39,567 I always questioned the necessity of that war. 102 00:06:39,733 --> 00:06:41,435 I thought it was crazy, 103 00:06:41,635 --> 00:06:42,903 and I thought the Bush administration 104 00:06:43,070 --> 00:06:44,371 managed it very poorly. 105 00:06:44,538 --> 00:06:47,541 The amount of money that we spent 106 00:06:47,708 --> 00:06:52,846 in Afghanistan for a losing cause is more money, 107 00:06:53,013 --> 00:06:56,216 is more than was spent on the Marshall Plan 108 00:06:56,383 --> 00:06:59,720 to rebuild Europe, all of Europe, 109 00:06:59,887 --> 00:07:01,121 after World War II. 110 00:07:01,321 --> 00:07:03,957 [dramatic music playing] 111 00:07:28,849 --> 00:07:29,917 [Flynn] Let me show you... 112 00:07:30,718 --> 00:07:32,820 I gave you a little bit of explanation. 113 00:07:33,020 --> 00:07:35,088 - [laughs] This is wild. - So Tucker... 114 00:07:35,255 --> 00:07:39,760 Tucker, I brought-- I'm brought in here like about, I don't know, 115 00:07:39,927 --> 00:07:41,795 it was over a year, a year and a half ago. 116 00:07:41,962 --> 00:07:45,766 I'm brought into this room, and I meet these two moms. 117 00:07:45,933 --> 00:07:47,668 And I-- I was like, "What caused you, 118 00:07:47,868 --> 00:07:50,003 what possessed you to do something like this?" 119 00:07:50,203 --> 00:07:53,907 And it was basically, "We believed so much 120 00:07:54,074 --> 00:07:56,677 in what was happening to you that-- that it was wrong." 121 00:07:56,877 --> 00:07:59,379 And they said on their spare time, they put this together. 122 00:07:59,580 --> 00:08:03,016 [Tucker] I personally grew up in a completely different world, 123 00:08:03,216 --> 00:08:06,419 where I didn't question a lot of the big lies 124 00:08:06,620 --> 00:08:08,689 because I didn't realize that they were lies. 125 00:08:08,889 --> 00:08:11,491 I was complicit in the lying without knowing it. 126 00:08:12,259 --> 00:08:16,897 I supported the war in Iraq and argued on behalf of it before it started. 127 00:08:17,097 --> 00:08:21,602 And it wasn't until I went to Iraq myself in the winter of 2003 128 00:08:21,769 --> 00:08:23,937 that I realized how wrong I had been, 129 00:08:24,104 --> 00:08:26,439 the degree to which I had been lied to. 130 00:08:26,607 --> 00:08:29,176 - [Flynn] That was a big turning point for you. - It changed my life completely. 131 00:08:29,309 --> 00:08:31,178 And I realized I'd been complicit in this lie. 132 00:08:31,344 --> 00:08:33,213 [piano music playing] 133 00:08:33,413 --> 00:08:35,215 [Flynn] I don't care what party you're in. 134 00:08:35,415 --> 00:08:37,484 They're in Washington, DC, that's the party. 135 00:08:37,651 --> 00:08:39,152 They have their black-tie affairs, 136 00:08:39,319 --> 00:08:41,354 their little clubs, their little cliques, 137 00:08:41,521 --> 00:08:43,624 and they got their little business enterprise that-- 138 00:08:43,791 --> 00:08:46,694 that floats around in these events. 139 00:08:46,860 --> 00:08:48,962 I would, I would be sick to my stomach in some of those things 140 00:08:49,129 --> 00:08:50,530 because you're looking around going, 141 00:08:50,698 --> 00:08:52,365 "You know, these are the son of a bitches 142 00:08:52,532 --> 00:08:55,035 that are just, you know." I mean, we're still at war. 143 00:08:55,202 --> 00:08:56,837 There's people overseas being killed. 144 00:08:57,004 --> 00:09:01,508 And I'm thinking to myself, this is just not right. 145 00:09:01,675 --> 00:09:03,677 If you have the same people 146 00:09:03,844 --> 00:09:06,179 in charge of a series of counterproductive wars 147 00:09:06,346 --> 00:09:08,215 from which the United States derives nothing, 148 00:09:08,381 --> 00:09:13,921 only, you know, loss of life, draining of the Treasury, 149 00:09:14,888 --> 00:09:17,658 evaporation of our prestige and power abroad. 150 00:09:17,825 --> 00:09:19,359 The U.S. is much weaker 151 00:09:19,526 --> 00:09:22,362 because of the last four wars we fought. 152 00:09:22,529 --> 00:09:25,565 Beginning in Vietnam in 1964, from Tonkin Gulf to here. 153 00:09:25,733 --> 00:09:27,534 Fifty-nine years. 154 00:09:27,701 --> 00:09:31,438 We have not fought a war that made the U.S. stronger. 155 00:09:31,639 --> 00:09:33,607 [Colin Powell] When we confront a regime 156 00:09:33,807 --> 00:09:35,976 that harbors ambitions for regional domination, 157 00:09:36,176 --> 00:09:38,145 hides weapons of mass destruction, 158 00:09:38,345 --> 00:09:40,547 and provides haven and active support for terrorists, 159 00:09:40,748 --> 00:09:43,450 we're not confronting the past. 160 00:09:44,151 --> 00:09:46,119 We are confronting the present. 161 00:09:46,319 --> 00:09:49,122 And unless we act, we are confronting 162 00:09:49,322 --> 00:09:51,859 an even more frightening future. 163 00:09:52,059 --> 00:09:53,761 [Flynn] Powell will be remembered for a lot of things; 164 00:09:53,927 --> 00:09:55,729 you know, they make him out to be a saint. 165 00:09:57,097 --> 00:09:59,299 That's what he'll be remembered for in history. 166 00:09:59,933 --> 00:10:03,536 As a junior officer, I couldn't really articulate it. 167 00:10:03,704 --> 00:10:05,739 But there was something there that I felt, you know, 168 00:10:05,906 --> 00:10:07,941 it seemed as though it's just a perpetual 169 00:10:08,108 --> 00:10:11,945 fraud, waste, and abuse... life cycle. 170 00:10:12,112 --> 00:10:13,881 Yeah, we're gonna go after terrorists, 171 00:10:14,047 --> 00:10:16,149 but you don't need an entire machine, 172 00:10:16,349 --> 00:10:19,552 conventional machine, to be in place constantly 173 00:10:19,720 --> 00:10:24,157 at all times in Afghanistan or in Iraq, for that matter, 174 00:10:24,357 --> 00:10:26,426 and-- or really any other place 175 00:10:26,626 --> 00:10:30,230 because we have strategic capability 176 00:10:30,430 --> 00:10:34,101 to go in and out surgically to address certain issues, 177 00:10:34,301 --> 00:10:38,739 literally within a few hours, maximum one day, globally. 178 00:10:39,439 --> 00:10:41,508 So, why not use that methodology 179 00:10:41,709 --> 00:10:43,276 rather than constantly pumping in 180 00:10:43,443 --> 00:10:44,945 billions of dollars a month? 181 00:10:45,112 --> 00:10:46,814 They want the problem to exist, so that-- 182 00:10:46,980 --> 00:10:49,950 that money flow and the constant defense budget 183 00:10:50,150 --> 00:10:53,153 can go ahead and fund the military-industrial complex. 184 00:10:53,320 --> 00:10:55,723 [soft music playing] 185 00:10:55,923 --> 00:10:58,258 [Jack Flynn] He became very close to Stanley McChrystal. 186 00:10:58,892 --> 00:11:00,527 From what I read, McChrystal told Michael, 187 00:11:00,728 --> 00:11:02,195 "You need to come in; I need-- we need to clean this up; 188 00:11:02,395 --> 00:11:03,663 we need to fix this thing." 189 00:11:03,831 --> 00:11:05,632 For whatever reason we were there, 190 00:11:05,799 --> 00:11:09,469 we were able to get Iraq under control 191 00:11:09,636 --> 00:11:12,773 because of the efforts of Joint Special Operations Command, 192 00:11:12,973 --> 00:11:16,810 and specifically, Michael's acumen 193 00:11:17,010 --> 00:11:21,815 in what he had been trained for throughout his career in Intel. 194 00:11:25,986 --> 00:11:28,321 [Ivan] There are 193 countries on the planet, 195 00:11:28,521 --> 00:11:29,890 according to the United Nations. 196 00:11:30,090 --> 00:11:35,963 The most premier unit within the world 197 00:11:36,129 --> 00:11:38,365 to fight against terror, 198 00:11:38,531 --> 00:11:43,270 General Flynn was the senior-ranking intelligence officer in that unit. 199 00:11:43,470 --> 00:11:46,740 You literally have to be the number one intel officer 200 00:11:46,940 --> 00:11:50,210 for that year's cohort, impeccable background, 201 00:11:50,377 --> 00:11:54,214 not like a single blemish in your entire military file, 202 00:11:55,182 --> 00:11:57,017 to be selected for that position. 203 00:11:57,885 --> 00:12:00,653 [Joe] Mike's, you know, pretty senior in rank at that point. 204 00:12:00,854 --> 00:12:03,456 He's maybe a two-star general, one-or two-star general. 205 00:12:03,656 --> 00:12:07,094 And Charlie's there as well. And what they're seeing is, 206 00:12:07,861 --> 00:12:10,097 the information that they're getting 207 00:12:10,297 --> 00:12:12,065 about who the Taliban were, how they were fighting, 208 00:12:12,232 --> 00:12:14,902 where they were getting their, their ammunition and so forth, 209 00:12:15,068 --> 00:12:18,105 that they were getting from the intel community was a bunch of bullshit. 210 00:12:18,305 --> 00:12:20,207 It was-- it was poorly served up, 211 00:12:20,407 --> 00:12:23,844 and there was no interagency coordination. 212 00:12:24,044 --> 00:12:25,779 I think Mike knew, 213 00:12:25,979 --> 00:12:27,514 and I think a lot of those guys knew 214 00:12:27,714 --> 00:12:29,282 that if something drastic wasn't done, 215 00:12:29,482 --> 00:12:31,018 they were going to be there for a long time. 216 00:12:33,921 --> 00:12:35,155 [Devin] I actually met General Flynn 217 00:12:35,355 --> 00:12:36,589 for the first time, 218 00:12:36,756 --> 00:12:40,560 uh, around 2005 or 2006, in Iraq. 219 00:12:40,727 --> 00:12:42,863 We would go to areas where they'd train 220 00:12:43,030 --> 00:12:45,765 military and military intelligence. 221 00:12:45,933 --> 00:12:48,969 And General Flynn was, oftentimes, 222 00:12:49,169 --> 00:12:50,804 they'll put up on the screen, 223 00:12:51,004 --> 00:12:53,406 as someone who had done a superior job. 224 00:12:53,606 --> 00:12:57,244 I mean, he was treated as the greatest 225 00:12:57,444 --> 00:13:01,581 intelligence general for his generation. 226 00:13:01,748 --> 00:13:07,320 Everybody respected his ability to really perfect intelligence. 227 00:13:07,520 --> 00:13:09,056 The objectives, the overall, 228 00:13:09,222 --> 00:13:15,762 our overarching objectives, we got so far astray. 229 00:13:15,929 --> 00:13:18,298 The Bush administration, the Obama administration, 230 00:13:18,465 --> 00:13:21,835 I mean, we just lost sight, and you're like, 231 00:13:22,035 --> 00:13:24,637 you're in this constant war, you know, 232 00:13:25,305 --> 00:13:27,007 and we would be having these conversations going, 233 00:13:27,207 --> 00:13:28,775 "Jesus, you know, when is this going to end?" 234 00:13:28,942 --> 00:13:30,677 When, you know, I mean, it can end. 235 00:13:30,878 --> 00:13:33,313 It can actually end, and it can end on our terms. 236 00:13:35,248 --> 00:13:37,417 [producer] The report you wrote in 2010... 237 00:13:37,584 --> 00:13:39,519 - [Flynn] Right. Mm-hm. - [producer] "Fixing Intel." 238 00:13:39,719 --> 00:13:41,855 - [Flynn] In fact, it's right here. - [producer] Let's see it. 239 00:13:42,055 --> 00:13:44,992 [Flynn] The full title: "A Blueprint for Making 240 00:13:45,158 --> 00:13:47,594 Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan." 241 00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:50,630 I was a senior intel officer out in Afghanistan. 242 00:13:50,830 --> 00:13:53,700 I mean, I went around Afghanistan to, 243 00:13:53,901 --> 00:13:56,536 to damn near every little town and village and-- 244 00:13:56,736 --> 00:13:58,771 and I did my own assessment. 245 00:13:58,972 --> 00:14:01,041 And there was a lot of people that didn't like that 246 00:14:01,241 --> 00:14:02,642 back in Washington, DC, because-- 247 00:14:02,842 --> 00:14:04,344 but I'm on the battlefield. 248 00:14:05,312 --> 00:14:09,449 This is an indictment of the intelligence community. 249 00:14:10,150 --> 00:14:13,653 And, and to a degree-- and I'm a part of it, 250 00:14:13,820 --> 00:14:17,024 so it wasn't like, I'm not indicting them. 251 00:14:17,190 --> 00:14:19,359 I'm indicting something that I'm a part of. 252 00:14:19,526 --> 00:14:24,564 What's in here are solutions, and in a way, you know, 253 00:14:24,764 --> 00:14:28,001 I'm hoping that it's not too late. 254 00:14:28,168 --> 00:14:30,070 [soft music playing] 255 00:14:32,339 --> 00:14:34,407 [Lee Smith] What General Michael Flynn found out , 256 00:14:35,875 --> 00:14:40,213 all sorts of intelligence that was necessary for soldiers 257 00:14:40,380 --> 00:14:43,150 as they were fighting in Afghanistan, 258 00:14:43,350 --> 00:14:46,153 it was all getting lost 259 00:14:46,353 --> 00:14:48,521 because it was being collected in Afghanistan 260 00:14:48,721 --> 00:14:50,523 and having to go through Washington 261 00:14:50,690 --> 00:14:52,325 before it could come back to Afghanistan. 262 00:14:52,492 --> 00:14:54,194 I mean, there were lives being lost. 263 00:14:54,794 --> 00:14:58,431 You know, there were missions that were botched, and lives lost. 264 00:14:59,166 --> 00:15:02,835 There's an example in our family of this in Iraq. 265 00:15:03,003 --> 00:15:04,871 Charlie was deployed in Iraq. 266 00:15:05,072 --> 00:15:08,075 And Charlie was taking care of the highways out of Baghdad 267 00:15:08,241 --> 00:15:11,478 down into the gulf through Kuwait. 268 00:15:12,245 --> 00:15:13,680 Charlie had a bunch of guys 269 00:15:13,846 --> 00:15:15,548 that were fighting as an infantryman, 270 00:15:15,715 --> 00:15:17,550 and Mike's running intel over there. 271 00:15:18,718 --> 00:15:21,421 So they're brothers. There's a chain of command. 272 00:15:22,155 --> 00:15:23,890 But they're brothers. 273 00:15:24,591 --> 00:15:27,227 So Charlie's able to tell Mike, "Hey, this is what I'm seeing down here." 274 00:15:27,394 --> 00:15:29,196 Not having it filtered to Mike. 275 00:15:29,362 --> 00:15:32,465 If Charlie told him what was going on down the street, 276 00:15:32,665 --> 00:15:35,668 okay, south of him, and what they were seeing down there, 277 00:15:35,868 --> 00:15:37,704 that he was going to get accurate information 278 00:15:37,904 --> 00:15:39,872 and be able to use that and act on it. 279 00:15:40,873 --> 00:15:42,475 [Flynn] This gets published, 280 00:15:42,675 --> 00:15:45,278 huge outcry in Washington, DC, 281 00:15:45,445 --> 00:15:50,283 the heads of the, of all this just giant monolith 282 00:15:50,450 --> 00:15:53,220 called the intelligence community, all the agency heads were like, 283 00:15:53,386 --> 00:15:55,222 they wanted my head. 284 00:15:55,422 --> 00:15:59,026 Ten years of war. I stick my name on that assessment. 285 00:15:59,759 --> 00:16:01,861 And I'm saying to the intelligence community, 286 00:16:02,062 --> 00:16:03,530 we're still not able to do our job, 287 00:16:03,730 --> 00:16:05,198 we're not doing our job. 288 00:16:05,398 --> 00:16:07,000 There's so many things that are-- 289 00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:08,835 that are addressed in here 290 00:16:09,036 --> 00:16:12,339 from the perspective of understanding your enemy, 291 00:16:12,539 --> 00:16:15,275 and understanding the environment, and understanding yourself. 292 00:16:15,442 --> 00:16:18,945 It's a very basic statement about warfare. 293 00:16:22,282 --> 00:16:25,085 For the officers, the last promotion is to major general. 294 00:16:25,285 --> 00:16:27,420 Everything after that is an appointment 295 00:16:27,620 --> 00:16:29,356 by the president of the United States. 296 00:16:29,556 --> 00:16:32,392 Jim Clapper wanted me, he went to the president 297 00:16:32,592 --> 00:16:34,027 and the president appointed me. 298 00:16:34,227 --> 00:16:36,363 So in this case, it's President Obama. 299 00:16:36,563 --> 00:16:37,764 [somber music playing] 300 00:16:39,466 --> 00:16:42,702 So President Obama appoints me into that job 301 00:16:42,902 --> 00:16:45,505 as the assistant director of National Intelligence, 302 00:16:45,672 --> 00:16:48,941 and then I have to go through a full Senate confirmation. 303 00:16:49,109 --> 00:16:51,111 So I'm coming back to Washington, DC, 304 00:16:51,278 --> 00:16:53,446 we're going to be able to keep our family there, you know, 305 00:16:54,114 --> 00:16:56,216 this is good, I'm going to get promoted. 306 00:16:56,416 --> 00:16:57,284 [soft music playing] 307 00:17:04,324 --> 00:17:06,759 [click] 308 00:17:06,959 --> 00:17:10,830 Many recall the famous article Mike Flynn wrote, 309 00:17:11,030 --> 00:17:14,501 called "A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant," 310 00:17:15,368 --> 00:17:18,738 which is one of the reasons why I brought Mike to ODNI , 311 00:17:19,439 --> 00:17:21,441 to fix all the intelligence issues 312 00:17:21,641 --> 00:17:24,144 - that he'd been complaining about. - [audience laughing] 313 00:17:24,311 --> 00:17:25,845 There's a phrase in the military, 314 00:17:26,012 --> 00:17:28,815 and I don't use my Irish too often, but, 315 00:17:28,981 --> 00:17:31,751 you know, they say, "Fuck up and move up." Right? 316 00:17:31,951 --> 00:17:34,854 And, you know, and I'm thinking, 317 00:17:35,021 --> 00:17:37,157 "Oh, maybe, maybe I fucked up so bad 318 00:17:37,324 --> 00:17:40,427 that they're just going to move me up to shut me up." 319 00:17:40,627 --> 00:17:44,897 It may very well be a case of bringing your enemies 320 00:17:45,064 --> 00:17:46,833 as close as you can so you can control them. 321 00:17:49,636 --> 00:17:51,438 [Joe] Big title, and a big job. 322 00:17:51,638 --> 00:17:53,005 Big job, huge job. 323 00:17:53,173 --> 00:17:55,442 I mean, the pinnacle of someone's career 324 00:17:56,042 --> 00:17:57,477 as an intelligence officer in the United States Army, 325 00:17:57,677 --> 00:17:59,146 it's like almost the number one-- 326 00:17:59,346 --> 00:18:00,947 it is the number one job, in fact, 327 00:18:01,148 --> 00:18:03,015 unless you're the National Security Advisor, 328 00:18:03,216 --> 00:18:04,617 which he ended up becoming as well. 329 00:18:07,053 --> 00:18:09,756 [Flynn] I've had a lot of time in combat, probably more-- 330 00:18:09,922 --> 00:18:12,259 more time in combat than most people, you know, 331 00:18:12,425 --> 00:18:15,228 that were in my sort of category. 332 00:18:15,428 --> 00:18:17,730 And I've had a lot of time, you know, in the field, in-- 333 00:18:17,930 --> 00:18:20,400 in operational assignments. 334 00:18:20,567 --> 00:18:25,138 And, and I'm also a Democrat. 335 00:18:25,238 --> 00:18:27,240 [Jack] So we're Kennedy Democrats, 336 00:18:27,940 --> 00:18:29,142 never Republicans. 337 00:18:31,911 --> 00:18:34,647 Your blue-collar Kennedy Democrats. 338 00:18:35,582 --> 00:18:37,384 [Joe] And the media loved Mike at that time, 339 00:18:37,584 --> 00:18:39,719 interestingly enough, because again, 340 00:18:39,919 --> 00:18:42,054 the Obama administration's saying, "Hey, this is our guy. 341 00:18:42,255 --> 00:18:45,225 He's a Democrat. He comes from a Democrat family. 342 00:18:45,392 --> 00:18:47,794 This guy has been in combat for six, seven years," 343 00:18:48,628 --> 00:18:52,365 all this stuff, but, you know what, kid from a small town, 344 00:18:52,565 --> 00:18:55,368 who grew up in a huge poor family, you know, 345 00:18:55,568 --> 00:18:58,137 something like that, you know, it's a big deal. 346 00:19:00,407 --> 00:19:02,609 So there was a lot of problems when he took over DIA. 347 00:19:02,809 --> 00:19:04,544 The establishment, especially the, 348 00:19:04,744 --> 00:19:08,047 what they call the SES, the senior executive staff, 349 00:19:08,248 --> 00:19:11,284 in the Department of Defense, was like, "Oh, this guy. 350 00:19:11,484 --> 00:19:14,754 This is, you know, we've seen these types before. 351 00:19:14,921 --> 00:19:17,123 We're going to railroad him out of here." 352 00:19:17,290 --> 00:19:19,992 I've kept every-- I'm like a pack rat with stuff, you know: 353 00:19:20,159 --> 00:19:24,431 awards, decorations, gifts that were given to me. 354 00:19:24,597 --> 00:19:26,933 And I've kept binders of them, you know, different things. 355 00:19:27,133 --> 00:19:29,769 [Adam Lovinger] And so, what really drew me to General Flynn, 356 00:19:29,936 --> 00:19:32,839 even though we had not started working together formally at that point, 357 00:19:33,005 --> 00:19:34,974 is that in all the meetings we had, 358 00:19:35,141 --> 00:19:40,447 he, his moral compass was very clear, 359 00:19:40,647 --> 00:19:46,286 and that was that, as an American government official, 360 00:19:46,486 --> 00:19:49,356 one must put the interests of the United States first. 361 00:19:49,522 --> 00:19:53,226 It's the mission which matters, not the individual, 362 00:19:53,426 --> 00:19:56,463 not lining your pockets for your career 363 00:19:56,629 --> 00:19:58,298 after you retire from government, 364 00:19:58,465 --> 00:20:01,200 not building your empire to get to the next, 365 00:20:01,368 --> 00:20:03,336 you know, rung within the federal government. 366 00:20:03,503 --> 00:20:06,239 That this is what matters, and it was wonderful to see 367 00:20:06,439 --> 00:20:09,175 that someone could rise to such heights 368 00:20:09,342 --> 00:20:11,077 while keeping so true 369 00:20:11,278 --> 00:20:13,713 to these values that made America great. 370 00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:15,748 He was one of the most respected generals 371 00:20:15,948 --> 00:20:18,150 in the military, plain and simple. 372 00:20:18,318 --> 00:20:21,721 And so, you know, what more can we ask for 373 00:20:21,888 --> 00:20:24,190 than to have one of our most successful generals 374 00:20:24,357 --> 00:20:28,194 be at the top of the intelligence apparatus for our military? 375 00:20:28,361 --> 00:20:30,497 And that's why he had strong support. 376 00:20:30,697 --> 00:20:32,499 But in January, President Obama told 377 00:20:32,699 --> 00:20:35,201 the New Yorker magazine's David Remnick that ISIS, 378 00:20:35,402 --> 00:20:38,338 which was then still considered a part of Al-Qaeda 379 00:20:38,538 --> 00:20:41,874 fighting in Syria, was like a JV basketball team. 380 00:20:42,041 --> 00:20:43,610 These guys are-- 381 00:20:43,810 --> 00:20:48,748 they want him to say that the ISIS is the JV team, 382 00:20:48,915 --> 00:20:53,219 and-- and he's like, that's not what-- that's not going to happen. 383 00:20:53,386 --> 00:20:54,954 They wanted that narrative to show 384 00:20:55,154 --> 00:20:59,258 that we were being tough on the enemy overseas 385 00:20:59,426 --> 00:21:01,561 that we were fighting, and that we were winning. 386 00:21:01,761 --> 00:21:04,797 We weren't winning. And in fact, the enemy is growing. 387 00:21:04,997 --> 00:21:05,932 They're expanding. 388 00:21:08,901 --> 00:21:10,337 Now, the way I remember it is... 389 00:21:10,537 --> 00:21:12,372 we're getting ready to go testify 390 00:21:12,572 --> 00:21:14,741 to Congress in an open hearing, 391 00:21:14,941 --> 00:21:18,511 and I get my statement that had been vetted 392 00:21:18,711 --> 00:21:21,314 through the National Intelligence Community, 393 00:21:21,514 --> 00:21:24,317 and through the DNI and also over to the White House. 394 00:21:24,517 --> 00:21:28,321 It's basically got red lines to change my testimony there, right? 395 00:21:28,521 --> 00:21:31,391 Everybody wants to hear all the different perspectives 396 00:21:31,591 --> 00:21:33,192 from these different organizations. 397 00:21:33,393 --> 00:21:35,027 So mine was changed. 398 00:21:35,227 --> 00:21:38,431 And I told my Congressional Affairs officer, 399 00:21:38,631 --> 00:21:40,099 I said, "I'm not going to change it. 400 00:21:40,299 --> 00:21:42,001 That's not... that's not right." 401 00:21:42,969 --> 00:21:47,106 A lot of people on the inside that were the underperformers 402 00:21:47,273 --> 00:21:51,611 had a lot of institutional clout that pushed for that as well. 403 00:21:51,778 --> 00:21:54,947 It was literally a, an organization 404 00:21:55,114 --> 00:21:56,783 that had rot in it, 405 00:21:56,949 --> 00:21:59,586 that wanted to keep that rot in place. 406 00:21:59,752 --> 00:22:01,788 I know what the CIA's reporting, 407 00:22:01,954 --> 00:22:05,157 I know what the National Geospatial Agency, you know, 408 00:22:05,324 --> 00:22:07,259 National Security Agency, FBI, 409 00:22:07,427 --> 00:22:08,928 all these different organizations are reporting. 410 00:22:09,095 --> 00:22:11,097 But I'm responsible for my agency, 411 00:22:11,263 --> 00:22:12,699 and I'm responsible to tell the truth 412 00:22:12,899 --> 00:22:15,668 for what my agency, you know, believes. 413 00:22:15,835 --> 00:22:18,270 This, this organization called ISIS 414 00:22:18,438 --> 00:22:21,441 was expanding rapidly and they were in like 415 00:22:21,608 --> 00:22:25,745 20-, you know, - four or -five nations around the greater region from, 416 00:22:25,945 --> 00:22:28,047 from literally from West Africa, all the way over to, 417 00:22:28,247 --> 00:22:30,950 in some cases, Indonesia and the Philippines. 418 00:22:32,151 --> 00:22:36,823 I'm called into a, an office call with Jim Clapper. 419 00:22:36,989 --> 00:22:38,357 So he goes, "We're gonna ask you to step down," 420 00:22:38,525 --> 00:22:40,159 and immediately, immediately, I said, 421 00:22:40,326 --> 00:22:41,961 "Is it because of my leadership?" 422 00:22:42,128 --> 00:22:43,896 He says, "Oh, no, it's not your leadership. 423 00:22:44,096 --> 00:22:46,232 If it was, I'd cut you off at the knees right now 424 00:22:46,433 --> 00:22:48,000 and you wouldn't go back into the job." 425 00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:49,669 That was my interpretation. 426 00:22:50,937 --> 00:22:52,038 He said, "It's because of--" 427 00:22:52,204 --> 00:22:54,607 and he used the word "attitude." 428 00:22:55,207 --> 00:22:56,643 That's how I remember it. 429 00:22:58,511 --> 00:22:59,979 And I walked out of that room. 430 00:23:00,146 --> 00:23:03,382 And I called my wife, and I said, you know, 431 00:23:03,550 --> 00:23:05,852 "Honey, things are gonna change again," you know. 432 00:23:06,018 --> 00:23:08,254 And, and, you know, in a funny way, 433 00:23:08,455 --> 00:23:10,657 even got a story about it, you know, 434 00:23:10,823 --> 00:23:13,092 if she even remembers that, that part, 'cause there was so many. 435 00:23:13,292 --> 00:23:15,327 But she was probably relieved, 436 00:23:15,495 --> 00:23:18,197 I was, you know, finally gonna retire. 437 00:23:18,364 --> 00:23:21,000 I never changed. I never changed. 438 00:23:21,167 --> 00:23:24,236 People that know me from the time I was a kid, 439 00:23:24,403 --> 00:23:27,874 to the people that worked with me as a young officer 440 00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:31,511 and all throughout my career, I never changed. 441 00:23:31,678 --> 00:23:34,714 So what changed in Jim Clapper, who brought me in and hired me? 442 00:23:34,914 --> 00:23:38,451 What changed, Jim? What changed? 443 00:23:38,651 --> 00:23:44,457 Was it because I wasn't toeing the line for the administration? 444 00:23:44,657 --> 00:23:46,926 I wasn't toeing the line for the, 445 00:23:47,093 --> 00:23:49,929 the "intelligence community's", you know, 446 00:23:50,096 --> 00:23:53,733 incorrect, false narrative. 447 00:23:53,900 --> 00:23:58,538 And, and, sadly, you know, tragically, 448 00:24:01,073 --> 00:24:04,877 you know, when I think about, God, like, fuck, that was 2014. 449 00:24:06,045 --> 00:24:09,982 When I think about six more years of fighting 450 00:24:10,182 --> 00:24:13,385 and dying and the bullshit. 451 00:24:15,688 --> 00:24:20,226 You know? I mean, my-- my responsibility as a-- 452 00:24:20,392 --> 00:24:22,394 as a senior officer in the military, 453 00:24:22,562 --> 00:24:24,396 and definitely as a senior intelligence officer, 454 00:24:24,564 --> 00:24:29,669 is to protect, save, and, and win. 455 00:24:29,869 --> 00:24:35,141 These assholes are toeing a political narrative 456 00:24:35,307 --> 00:24:37,109 that was total bullshit. 457 00:24:38,277 --> 00:24:40,513 Something didn't smell right for me. 458 00:24:40,713 --> 00:24:46,185 And the very next day, I sent a direct message 459 00:24:46,385 --> 00:24:49,255 and it said, "Sir, I think I know what happened to you. 460 00:24:50,422 --> 00:24:52,324 Unacceptable. 461 00:24:52,491 --> 00:24:56,428 You have a loyal soldier for the rest of your life. 462 00:24:56,596 --> 00:24:59,966 Let me know if you ever need to, like utilize me to help out." 463 00:25:00,132 --> 00:25:02,301 Because I thought that that was, uh, 464 00:25:02,468 --> 00:25:04,771 him being resigned was totally unacceptable. 465 00:25:04,937 --> 00:25:05,938 [sad music playing] 466 00:25:14,947 --> 00:25:16,616 I loved DC. I loved Virginia. 467 00:25:16,783 --> 00:25:18,618 We loved being there, we loved living there, 468 00:25:18,785 --> 00:25:23,055 we had happy times there until this all happened 469 00:25:23,255 --> 00:25:26,559 when he retired and then decided to go and work on his own. 470 00:25:26,759 --> 00:25:30,229 In your career, I have always found, whether it's in your service, 471 00:25:30,429 --> 00:25:32,832 or if you spent a lot of time in a joint community, 472 00:25:33,032 --> 00:25:38,004 you will run across individuals, and you will say to yourself, 473 00:25:38,204 --> 00:25:40,640 "That guy is amazing." 474 00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:45,011 And early on, when I met Mike, I thought to myself, "That guy is amazing." 475 00:25:45,712 --> 00:25:47,513 Today, as we would say in the Navy, 476 00:25:47,714 --> 00:25:49,649 we watch pass over the side, 477 00:25:50,482 --> 00:25:53,252 probably the most visible intelligence professional 478 00:25:53,452 --> 00:25:55,755 that we have generated within this department 479 00:25:55,955 --> 00:25:57,690 in the last ten or 20 years. 480 00:25:58,357 --> 00:26:00,593 So Mike, we all want to say thank you for a great job. 481 00:26:00,793 --> 00:26:03,763 We want to thank you for making a great, great difference. 482 00:26:03,963 --> 00:26:05,798 Lori, we wish you only the best. 483 00:26:06,532 --> 00:26:08,668 We know there's a lot of opportunities ahead of you. 484 00:26:08,868 --> 00:26:11,437 I can't wait to see where the journey is gonna take you. 485 00:26:11,638 --> 00:26:13,906 I don't think we've heard the last of the Flynns. 486 00:26:14,073 --> 00:26:19,578 That was, without a doubt, a real test of the relationship 487 00:26:19,746 --> 00:26:25,351 and, um, and she was patient. 488 00:26:25,517 --> 00:26:29,021 And I saw her get mad. But she knew he was right. 489 00:26:29,188 --> 00:26:30,890 And I knew, we all knew he was right. 490 00:26:31,057 --> 00:26:34,861 Lori was a stabilizing force in his life. 491 00:26:35,027 --> 00:26:36,362 She's a special gal. 492 00:26:36,528 --> 00:26:40,833 She's strong, unwavering commitment. 493 00:26:41,033 --> 00:26:44,503 I think Lori saved his life actually, as a teenager, if you ask me. 494 00:26:44,704 --> 00:26:48,708 I think that if Michael hadn't really, you know, 495 00:26:48,908 --> 00:26:51,878 been kind of swept up in that relationship as a teenager-- 496 00:26:52,078 --> 00:26:55,982 you're talking 14, 15 years old, that's a young person-- 497 00:26:56,716 --> 00:26:58,050 I think that Michael could have gone 498 00:26:58,217 --> 00:27:00,052 a completely different direction. 499 00:27:00,219 --> 00:27:01,954 Probably God at work there, honestly, 500 00:27:02,121 --> 00:27:03,756 whith that relationship blooming. 501 00:27:03,923 --> 00:27:06,726 And who would have thought that at 14 and 15 years old, 502 00:27:06,893 --> 00:27:08,627 you know, they'd be married today, 503 00:27:08,795 --> 00:27:10,797 40-- after all they've been through, I don't know, 504 00:27:10,963 --> 00:27:13,465 48 years, almost going on 50 years. 505 00:27:13,632 --> 00:27:16,568 But that relationship at that time in Michael's life 506 00:27:17,436 --> 00:27:19,706 gave him a reason to get focused on something. 507 00:27:19,906 --> 00:27:23,209 He did better in school. He did better in sports. 508 00:27:23,409 --> 00:27:25,678 He got really into really playing sports in school. 509 00:27:25,878 --> 00:27:28,147 Of course, then when he went into, 510 00:27:28,314 --> 00:27:30,516 when he went to University of Rhode Island, 511 00:27:30,717 --> 00:27:34,253 the army and the ROTC program was another godsend for him, 512 00:27:34,420 --> 00:27:38,257 you know, for a rambunctious guy like Mike Flynn. [laughs] 513 00:27:38,424 --> 00:27:40,760 [laughing] 514 00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:44,196 [Lori] I went to kindergarten through eighth grade in one Catholic school, 515 00:27:44,396 --> 00:27:46,465 and then didn't go to a public school 516 00:27:46,632 --> 00:27:48,434 till I was in the ninth grade. 517 00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:52,839 That was a big eye-opener for me, for sure. 518 00:27:52,939 --> 00:27:54,774 And that's when I first met Mike, too, 519 00:27:54,974 --> 00:27:57,276 that summer going into the ninth grade. 520 00:27:57,476 --> 00:28:00,046 You know, we didn't date in ninth grade or anything. 521 00:28:00,246 --> 00:28:03,149 We just kind of went steady for two weeks, 522 00:28:03,349 --> 00:28:05,785 and then we went our separate ways. 523 00:28:05,985 --> 00:28:07,754 I mean, I always saw him in the halls in high school, 524 00:28:07,954 --> 00:28:09,956 but we kind of had our own life the next two years, 525 00:28:10,156 --> 00:28:12,792 and then our senior year, we got back together again. 526 00:28:12,992 --> 00:28:15,061 We both said that night 527 00:28:15,261 --> 00:28:17,163 that if we go out with each other again, this is it. 528 00:28:17,329 --> 00:28:19,298 You're not, you know, no, no straying. 529 00:28:19,498 --> 00:28:21,100 [Flynn] So when Lori and I were married, 530 00:28:21,300 --> 00:28:23,770 during the wedding ceremony, the priest, 531 00:28:23,970 --> 00:28:27,073 who was also a cousin of ours, Philip, Father Philip. 532 00:28:27,273 --> 00:28:29,475 There's a part of the beach and we call it the Rock. 533 00:28:29,675 --> 00:28:32,078 We would go spend a lot of time surfing there. 534 00:28:32,278 --> 00:28:35,848 He described Lori as that rock, unmovable. 535 00:28:36,783 --> 00:28:39,451 He described me as the tide. 536 00:28:40,452 --> 00:28:43,255 I think my husband is the rock, really. 537 00:28:44,523 --> 00:28:48,227 I think we're a great team together. 538 00:28:48,394 --> 00:28:53,132 I can't say that I never lost it during this whole thing. 539 00:28:54,333 --> 00:28:59,538 There were times that I was pretty rock-bottom. 540 00:28:59,638 --> 00:29:04,376 And he always was the strength that I needed to go on. 541 00:29:04,543 --> 00:29:07,713 I mean, he always had the best-case scenarios that we would, you know, 542 00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:09,782 he would always put it in a better light than I could. 543 00:29:09,982 --> 00:29:13,619 And there could have been no better description in our marriage. 544 00:29:13,820 --> 00:29:16,923 You know, we're getting ready to go into 42 years of marriage. 545 00:29:17,857 --> 00:29:20,659 You know, we've known each other since we were 13 years old. 546 00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:27,633 A steady rock in this ebb and flow of life. 547 00:29:28,667 --> 00:29:32,671 And I knew that I could depend on her to do a lot of things that-- 548 00:29:32,872 --> 00:29:34,673 that I was not going to be able to do. 549 00:29:34,874 --> 00:29:36,943 And many of the times 'cause I'm deployed. 550 00:29:37,977 --> 00:29:42,314 [Lori] Uh, prayer and God came back into my life, into both of our lives, 551 00:29:42,514 --> 00:29:45,084 because we were at wit's end sometimes. 552 00:29:45,251 --> 00:29:49,889 And that was one of the only things that we knew we had. 553 00:29:50,056 --> 00:29:53,659 [Flynn] May the rain fall soft upon your fields, and until we meet again-- 554 00:29:53,860 --> 00:29:56,662 [all] May God hold you in the palm of his hand. 555 00:29:56,863 --> 00:29:59,298 - Amen. Amen. - Sláinte. Sláinte. Sláinte. 556 00:29:59,465 --> 00:30:01,600 The house that we ended up growing up in, 557 00:30:01,767 --> 00:30:05,237 in Rhode Island, belonged to my grandfather. 558 00:30:05,404 --> 00:30:07,773 We came back to this house that had one bedroom, 559 00:30:07,940 --> 00:30:10,342 one little tiny bathroom, a little tiny kitchen. 560 00:30:10,542 --> 00:30:13,312 All the boys were in, uh, were in bunk beds, 561 00:30:13,479 --> 00:30:15,347 and my parents slept in the living room-- 562 00:30:15,547 --> 00:30:17,783 there was a pullout couch-- for a while. 563 00:30:17,950 --> 00:30:21,187 There were three oldest, three middle, and three youngest. 564 00:30:21,387 --> 00:30:23,289 And I was part of the three youngest, 565 00:30:23,455 --> 00:30:25,424 so I would be in the bathroom, 566 00:30:25,591 --> 00:30:28,427 and I would never get like it alone. 567 00:30:28,594 --> 00:30:31,430 I would be scrubbing my teeth and so the boys would come in, 568 00:30:31,597 --> 00:30:33,832 you know, "I gotta go," because it was one bathroom. 569 00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:37,369 But that bathroom door, it got knocked down a few times. 570 00:30:37,569 --> 00:30:38,704 [laughs] 571 00:30:38,905 --> 00:30:40,339 [soft music playing] 572 00:30:46,312 --> 00:30:51,150 [Clare] Here's, you know, nine kids, 11 people in a 1,200-square-foot house. 573 00:30:52,318 --> 00:30:54,286 So our backyard, our playground, 574 00:30:54,486 --> 00:30:56,488 was the ocean, was the Atlantic Ocean. 575 00:30:58,357 --> 00:31:01,994 My parents were great. They just let us go. 576 00:31:04,263 --> 00:31:06,665 [Flynn] The beach was there. 577 00:31:06,865 --> 00:31:09,902 The water was an outlet for us. 578 00:31:10,102 --> 00:31:13,072 [Jack] I mean, I'm paddling out when I was seven or eight years old, 579 00:31:13,272 --> 00:31:16,875 in the lineup in big waves off Ruggles Avenue. 580 00:31:18,110 --> 00:31:21,213 It was literally, you could run out in our backyard, 581 00:31:21,380 --> 00:31:23,715 pick up a, you know, a throwin' rock, 582 00:31:23,882 --> 00:31:26,152 and you could throw it into the ocean. It was that close. 583 00:31:26,352 --> 00:31:30,622 [Joe] And we started to realize, "Hey, there's guys out there surfing." 584 00:31:30,722 --> 00:31:33,159 And we could swim like fish. 585 00:31:35,094 --> 00:31:37,663 [Mary] And the kids would be swarming all over the beach. 586 00:31:37,863 --> 00:31:41,333 I mean, there'd be like five or six of them. That, that was a lot of fun. 587 00:31:41,533 --> 00:31:43,202 It really was a lot of fun. 588 00:31:43,402 --> 00:31:45,371 [Clare] You know, we would go surf all winter, 589 00:31:45,571 --> 00:31:46,672 surf in hurricanes. 590 00:31:46,872 --> 00:31:49,275 And so, it taught us a lot 591 00:31:49,475 --> 00:31:53,045 about endurance, being in the ocean for hours. 592 00:31:53,245 --> 00:31:55,614 [Flynn] There's a lot of people that surf, 593 00:31:55,814 --> 00:31:59,385 but those of us that find it as a spiritual thing... 594 00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,090 In our family, it's a spiritual thing. 595 00:32:05,657 --> 00:32:06,959 It's very, very powerful. 596 00:32:07,159 --> 00:32:08,594 You have to respect the power. 597 00:32:09,561 --> 00:32:11,830 What is it telling you at times? 598 00:32:12,698 --> 00:32:14,200 If you're out in big surf, that, you know, 599 00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:16,402 your life could turn in a second. 600 00:32:16,602 --> 00:32:20,006 Taking off on a wave, wiped out... 601 00:32:20,106 --> 00:32:23,642 been dragged down and felt like, 602 00:32:23,842 --> 00:32:25,311 I'm out here all alone. 603 00:32:27,679 --> 00:32:31,750 That is a respect that I learned, 604 00:32:31,950 --> 00:32:34,086 and I still have it to this day. 605 00:32:40,226 --> 00:32:42,728 [Joe] You got to remember, your entire adult life is in the military. 606 00:32:42,928 --> 00:32:45,497 All you know is a command structure like the military. 607 00:32:45,697 --> 00:32:49,268 You don't have a lot of experience in business. You're getting things set up. 608 00:32:49,468 --> 00:32:50,769 [Clare] You know, he wants to work. 609 00:32:50,969 --> 00:32:52,771 He still wants to have, you know, 610 00:32:52,971 --> 00:32:55,107 service to country again. 611 00:32:55,274 --> 00:32:58,310 Michael Jr. was actually working for a company that I was running at the time, 612 00:32:58,477 --> 00:33:00,812 and he came to me and said, "I'm going to go work for my dad, 613 00:33:00,979 --> 00:33:02,814 we're going to start a consulting group." 614 00:33:02,981 --> 00:33:05,817 Companies were hiring him for advisory work. 615 00:33:05,984 --> 00:33:08,620 I think he was on some boards of some private equity groups. 616 00:33:08,787 --> 00:33:12,024 Normal stuff that generals do when they get out of service. 617 00:33:12,224 --> 00:33:14,860 We essentially formed a business together. 618 00:33:15,061 --> 00:33:16,595 He was just like, "You want to go into business together?" 619 00:33:16,762 --> 00:33:18,764 I said, "Absolutely." I mean, this was a guy 620 00:33:18,930 --> 00:33:22,834 that I had grown up idolizing my entire life, 621 00:33:23,001 --> 00:33:24,970 and this was a chance for me to, 622 00:33:25,137 --> 00:33:28,540 to get to know my father, you know? And... 623 00:33:32,444 --> 00:33:37,983 No, it was-- it was... It was, uh... 624 00:33:38,150 --> 00:33:39,651 it was an opportunity I knew I had to take, 625 00:33:39,818 --> 00:33:41,187 that I wanted to take. 626 00:33:42,421 --> 00:33:45,291 I love the idea of being able to work with him 627 00:33:45,457 --> 00:33:48,960 because for many, many years of his life, I wasn't around, 628 00:33:49,128 --> 00:33:52,631 with military and deployments and moves and, and, 629 00:33:52,798 --> 00:33:55,834 and schools and high schools and baseball games and-- 630 00:33:56,001 --> 00:33:57,503 and birthdays and hell, 631 00:33:57,669 --> 00:33:59,871 I almost didn't make it to his wedding. 632 00:34:00,038 --> 00:34:02,874 I flew in from Afghanistan the night before his wedding. 633 00:34:03,642 --> 00:34:06,912 And I was lucky that I made it. 634 00:34:07,813 --> 00:34:10,316 I was so happy that I was going to be able to do that with him 635 00:34:10,516 --> 00:34:14,186 to be closer to him, work with him on a daily basis. 636 00:34:15,687 --> 00:34:19,091 People started to reach out to him to ask him for his advice 637 00:34:19,291 --> 00:34:21,627 on a lot of the foreign, um, 638 00:34:21,827 --> 00:34:24,130 you know, what was happening in foreign countries. 639 00:34:24,330 --> 00:34:27,099 And so, he was advising everybody. 640 00:34:27,299 --> 00:34:29,268 [Flynn] When I looked at what the country needed, 641 00:34:29,468 --> 00:34:32,571 the country didn't need another Clinton or another Bush. 642 00:34:33,739 --> 00:34:34,740 That was clear. 643 00:34:38,210 --> 00:34:40,612 [Michael Jr.] I am pretty sure that he knew then 644 00:34:40,812 --> 00:34:44,416 that Donald Trump was going to be the nominee. 645 00:34:44,583 --> 00:34:47,018 We did meet with other candidates. 646 00:34:47,186 --> 00:34:51,357 I mean, I remember sitting down with Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz. 647 00:34:51,523 --> 00:34:56,762 Probably why I wasn't asked to help those, Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton. 648 00:34:56,928 --> 00:34:59,931 But also I never said no, I was just never asked. 649 00:35:00,098 --> 00:35:03,402 You know, I was-- I was praying that there was going to be somebody 650 00:35:03,569 --> 00:35:09,408 that rose out of the ashes who wasn't a typical politician. 651 00:35:09,575 --> 00:35:12,244 And I looked at him and I go, "Donald Trump? Are you out of your mind?" 652 00:35:12,411 --> 00:35:14,380 And he goes, "I'm telling you right now, 653 00:35:14,546 --> 00:35:16,248 Donald Trump can beat Hillary Clinton." 654 00:35:16,415 --> 00:35:17,916 I said, "Why?" 655 00:35:18,083 --> 00:35:19,985 He goes, "Because the country is-- 656 00:35:20,186 --> 00:35:22,454 the country's ready for something different." 657 00:35:22,621 --> 00:35:25,023 [triumphant music playing] 658 00:35:25,224 --> 00:35:29,761 [Michael Jr.] He met Trump for the first time in 2015. 659 00:35:29,928 --> 00:35:33,799 He expected it to only be like maybe a 20-to 30-minute meeting. 660 00:35:33,965 --> 00:35:36,168 It turned into like a two-and-a-half-hour-long meeting. 661 00:35:36,368 --> 00:35:40,105 If we can end these, these wars that we are in, 662 00:35:40,272 --> 00:35:42,007 we're-- where we're pouring trillions and trillions of dollars, 663 00:35:42,208 --> 00:35:43,809 and we're not winning. 664 00:35:43,975 --> 00:35:46,312 And Trump was the one that had that, that's, 665 00:35:46,478 --> 00:35:49,315 that was the conversation that I initially had with him. 666 00:35:49,481 --> 00:35:52,818 I was happy to support Trump as well 667 00:35:52,984 --> 00:35:55,153 because I just wanted to see, I wanted-- 668 00:35:55,321 --> 00:35:57,356 I didn't see all the hope and change as much as I wanted, 669 00:35:57,556 --> 00:35:59,625 you know, with Obama. 670 00:35:59,791 --> 00:36:01,593 And I wanted to see what would happen with Trump. 671 00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:03,362 My first bombshell. 672 00:36:04,330 --> 00:36:07,699 My first, [inhales deeply] "Uh-oh," was, 673 00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:10,035 and I was proud of him. 674 00:36:10,236 --> 00:36:14,306 I was, it's true, but was at that Republican convention. 675 00:36:14,473 --> 00:36:18,043 But I was concerned about that with him 676 00:36:18,244 --> 00:36:23,315 because he was now in a-- in another world with politics. 677 00:36:23,515 --> 00:36:26,952 - [audience cheering] - Elect Donald Trump 678 00:36:27,152 --> 00:36:30,722 as the next president of the United States of America. 679 00:36:30,922 --> 00:36:33,625 Thank you very much, and God bless America. 680 00:36:33,825 --> 00:36:35,894 [Flynn] From that moment on, I really, 681 00:36:36,094 --> 00:36:39,665 I started to ride with, with, with Donald Trump, 682 00:36:39,831 --> 00:36:41,300 literally ride with him. 683 00:36:41,467 --> 00:36:43,001 And we'd fly all over the country 684 00:36:43,168 --> 00:36:45,371 and go to these different campaign rallies. 685 00:36:45,537 --> 00:36:48,507 We'd do three or four cities in a day. 686 00:36:48,674 --> 00:36:52,110 And every place that we went to would have no less than 687 00:36:52,311 --> 00:36:55,947 10,000 people, and in most cases, they had 20-, 30,000 people. 688 00:36:56,147 --> 00:36:59,751 - Unbelievable. - [crowd cheering and applauding] 689 00:37:01,853 --> 00:37:03,589 [crowd chanting] USA! 690 00:37:03,789 --> 00:37:05,424 [Trump] We are going to win back the White House. 691 00:37:05,624 --> 00:37:08,193 [Flynn] It reinforced for me the sentiment 692 00:37:08,394 --> 00:37:11,530 that I felt about the direction of the country. 693 00:37:11,697 --> 00:37:14,700 These big institutions, these complexes, right? 694 00:37:14,866 --> 00:37:16,602 I call it the security state complex, 695 00:37:16,802 --> 00:37:20,105 the military-industrial complex, where they were leading us. 696 00:37:21,273 --> 00:37:24,776 And they're leading us down a path that, 697 00:37:24,976 --> 00:37:26,912 that nobody wants to go down. 698 00:37:27,078 --> 00:37:28,914 You know, it's like they say, right, 699 00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:30,849 Flynn knows where the bodies are buried. 700 00:37:31,016 --> 00:37:34,853 That's a metaphor for understanding how dangerous 701 00:37:35,020 --> 00:37:38,490 our system of government has, has become. 702 00:37:38,690 --> 00:37:42,794 And now I'm advising a guy who looks to be, you know, a, 703 00:37:42,994 --> 00:37:45,631 he's the front runner for one of the major parties. 704 00:37:46,565 --> 00:37:48,300 And he's gonna, you know, he has a shot at being 705 00:37:48,500 --> 00:37:50,469 president of the United States of America. 706 00:37:50,669 --> 00:37:53,038 Big deal, right? It's huge. It's a start. 707 00:37:53,939 --> 00:38:00,312 And so you fast forward into, into June of 2016. 708 00:38:00,512 --> 00:38:02,781 And now I get a phone call from Corey Lewandowski saying, 709 00:38:02,948 --> 00:38:06,051 "Hey, we're going to vet you for vice president of the United States." 710 00:38:06,685 --> 00:38:10,055 I says, "Wow." That's-- that was like-- 711 00:38:10,221 --> 00:38:11,590 I didn't expect that. 712 00:38:11,757 --> 00:38:15,026 I'm saying it. I don't-- I think 713 00:38:15,226 --> 00:38:17,563 Pence envied Mike's relationship with Donald Trump. 714 00:38:18,964 --> 00:38:23,335 Trump respects people that know how to work. 715 00:38:23,535 --> 00:38:26,271 Pence was a lifetime politician. 716 00:38:26,472 --> 00:38:29,641 Priebus was a lifetime politician . 717 00:38:29,808 --> 00:38:32,911 They're GOP party hacks. 718 00:38:33,078 --> 00:38:38,183 Mike was a dyed-in-the-wool soldier. 719 00:38:39,485 --> 00:38:45,491 Trump traveled with Michael for months before he was elected. 720 00:38:46,425 --> 00:38:48,326 Pence was pulled in politically. 721 00:38:48,494 --> 00:38:53,365 Mike became close to Trump as a friend and trusted... 722 00:38:54,332 --> 00:38:58,370 I don't know, advisor, ally in the trenches through-- 723 00:38:58,570 --> 00:39:01,039 through the election process. 724 00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:06,311 [Flynn] Mike Pence, Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, and Mike Flynn. 725 00:39:06,512 --> 00:39:08,547 You know, and it's humbling. 726 00:39:08,747 --> 00:39:10,916 It's a humbling, humbling experience, 727 00:39:11,116 --> 00:39:14,586 to even be considered, to be thought about like that. 728 00:39:14,786 --> 00:39:17,456 The fascinating thing about that is 729 00:39:18,123 --> 00:39:20,726 that, of those four people, three of them were, 730 00:39:20,926 --> 00:39:23,328 I would call, hardcore Republicans. 731 00:39:23,495 --> 00:39:27,165 One, Mike Flynn, is a registered Democrat. 732 00:39:28,634 --> 00:39:31,570 I went into the White House as a-- as a Democrat, right, 733 00:39:31,770 --> 00:39:33,338 because I didn't give a shit about the politics. 734 00:39:33,505 --> 00:39:35,841 What I cared about was our country. 735 00:39:36,542 --> 00:39:39,010 So I get a phone call, you know, from Trump, you know, 736 00:39:39,177 --> 00:39:40,646 "How you doing, Donald, what's going on?" 737 00:39:40,812 --> 00:39:42,748 He goes, "Well, you know, you've seen everything." 738 00:39:42,948 --> 00:39:45,183 He goes, "I'm not gonna go with you as, 739 00:39:45,350 --> 00:39:47,586 as the vice president," and he, and he kind of, 740 00:39:47,786 --> 00:39:49,855 you know, flippantly jokes, says, 741 00:39:50,021 --> 00:39:53,224 "In another time, you know, maybe being a Democrat 742 00:39:53,391 --> 00:39:55,193 would be a good thing, but," he goes, "but it's, you know, 743 00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:56,528 it's not going to work out this time." 744 00:39:56,695 --> 00:39:58,029 And I said, "No problem. 745 00:39:58,196 --> 00:40:00,365 I'm, I'm, you know, I'm here to help. 746 00:40:00,532 --> 00:40:02,233 However I can, you know, help out." 747 00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,170 And, and he told me he was going to Indiana 748 00:40:05,336 --> 00:40:07,272 and Mike Pence was going to be his-- his choice. 749 00:40:07,473 --> 00:40:11,042 The next vice president of the United States, 750 00:40:11,242 --> 00:40:13,011 Governor Mike Pence. 751 00:40:13,211 --> 00:40:16,181 - Thank you, everybody, thank you. - [cheering] 752 00:40:16,381 --> 00:40:17,883 [Flynn] All these other sycophants 753 00:40:18,083 --> 00:40:20,318 and all these people that are consultants 754 00:40:20,519 --> 00:40:22,187 and, and part of the campaign, they're, like, getting paid. 755 00:40:22,353 --> 00:40:23,855 They're on a payroll, big payroll. 756 00:40:24,022 --> 00:40:25,423 I never took a dime, not a dime. 757 00:40:25,591 --> 00:40:27,926 I didn't get paid a cent. 758 00:40:28,093 --> 00:40:30,729 I did that because that's what I felt like was my-- 759 00:40:30,929 --> 00:40:33,364 my, like, responsibility. 760 00:40:36,334 --> 00:40:37,803 [Trump on TV] They spied on my campaign. 761 00:40:38,003 --> 00:40:39,471 [Leslie on TV] There's no evidence of that. 762 00:40:39,705 --> 00:40:41,673 - [Trump] Of course there is. - [Leslie] No. 763 00:40:41,873 --> 00:40:43,374 - Leslie, they spied on my campaign-- - [Leslie] Sir... 764 00:40:43,575 --> 00:40:44,976 And then they got caught. 765 00:40:45,176 --> 00:40:47,445 The government, the federal government, 766 00:40:47,613 --> 00:40:49,280 the United States intelligence community, 767 00:40:49,447 --> 00:40:51,717 elements within it, 768 00:40:51,883 --> 00:40:54,586 the most senior law enforcement organization 769 00:40:54,753 --> 00:40:56,722 in the country, the FBI, 770 00:40:56,888 --> 00:40:59,157 was spying on a presidential campaign. 771 00:40:59,357 --> 00:41:00,826 We didn't know it. 772 00:41:01,026 --> 00:41:02,561 We can't put on things we can't verify. 773 00:41:02,761 --> 00:41:04,563 Leslie, they spied on my campaign. 774 00:41:04,763 --> 00:41:06,364 - Well, we can't verify that. - It's been totally verified. 775 00:41:06,598 --> 00:41:08,066 No. 776 00:41:08,266 --> 00:41:10,035 [reporter] Donald J. Trump will become 777 00:41:10,235 --> 00:41:13,038 the 45th president of the United States, 778 00:41:13,238 --> 00:41:15,273 defeating Hillary Clinton in a campaign 779 00:41:15,473 --> 00:41:19,410 unlike anything we've seen in our lifetime. 780 00:41:19,578 --> 00:41:20,746 And I'd be lying if I-- 781 00:41:20,912 --> 00:41:23,281 if I didn't admit that, like, you know, 782 00:41:23,481 --> 00:41:26,251 I, I didn't really think Trump was gonna win either. 783 00:41:26,451 --> 00:41:29,087 But then he got elected. 784 00:41:29,287 --> 00:41:31,089 [Obama] As I said last night, 785 00:41:31,289 --> 00:41:34,560 my number one priority in the coming two months 786 00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:38,964 is to try to facilitate a transition 787 00:41:39,164 --> 00:41:41,967 that ensures our president- elect is successful. 788 00:41:42,167 --> 00:41:45,470 [Flynn] Obama talks to Trump about two people. 789 00:41:45,637 --> 00:41:49,975 Threats, apparently, to him, certainly to, 790 00:41:50,141 --> 00:41:52,110 at least one to the United States, 791 00:41:52,277 --> 00:41:54,546 and one of them was Kim Jong Un, 792 00:41:54,746 --> 00:41:57,649 the dictator over in North Korea, 793 00:41:57,816 --> 00:42:01,152 and the other was General Mike Flynn. 794 00:42:01,953 --> 00:42:04,890 You know, the one thing Obama tells Trump is, 795 00:42:05,090 --> 00:42:07,893 don't hire, don't hire General Flynn. 796 00:42:08,093 --> 00:42:10,428 I mean, you can't make this stuff up. 797 00:42:10,629 --> 00:42:13,398 [Flynn] So I go upstairs to Trump's office, 798 00:42:13,599 --> 00:42:15,533 and he started telling me about this conversation 799 00:42:15,701 --> 00:42:18,570 that he had had with-- with Barack Obama. 800 00:42:18,770 --> 00:42:20,138 And I said, "Really?" 801 00:42:20,305 --> 00:42:21,539 And he goes, "What do you think about that?" 802 00:42:21,707 --> 00:42:22,974 And I said, "You know something? 803 00:42:23,141 --> 00:42:25,677 I've never met the guy." Never met him. 804 00:42:25,844 --> 00:42:27,378 Never met Barack Obama. 805 00:42:27,545 --> 00:42:29,180 Although he picked me twice for two key jobs. 806 00:42:29,347 --> 00:42:32,017 I said, "I never had the opportunity to meet the guy, 807 00:42:32,183 --> 00:42:33,551 so why-- why he would say something like that, 808 00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:35,353 I have no idea." 809 00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:36,822 And he goes, "Yeah, neither do I." 810 00:42:36,988 --> 00:42:39,257 And he goes, "I don't trust the guy." 811 00:42:40,726 --> 00:42:42,260 [somber music playing] 812 00:42:45,163 --> 00:42:47,332 [Flynn] I stood up for him, I stood up with him. 813 00:42:47,532 --> 00:42:49,000 We won. 814 00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:51,036 And he turns around and goes, 815 00:42:51,236 --> 00:42:53,138 "Want you to come in and be my National Security Adviser." 816 00:42:53,338 --> 00:42:55,707 That's a really difficult question to say no to. 817 00:42:59,177 --> 00:43:01,012 So I said yes. 818 00:43:01,212 --> 00:43:04,315 We shook hands, we took a-- took some photos, 819 00:43:04,515 --> 00:43:08,386 we put out a press release about it, 820 00:43:08,586 --> 00:43:11,189 and it just seemed like all hell broke loose. 821 00:43:11,389 --> 00:43:13,725 I mean, it just really seemed like all hell broke loose. 822 00:43:13,892 --> 00:43:15,593 There's going to be 823 00:43:15,761 --> 00:43:19,030 a complete cleansing of the fraud, waste, and abuse, 824 00:43:19,230 --> 00:43:20,966 because there was indications that he was going to do 825 00:43:21,166 --> 00:43:23,835 a look and audit into the National Security System 826 00:43:24,035 --> 00:43:25,837 to root out the rot, 827 00:43:26,037 --> 00:43:28,740 but not just in one little agency. 828 00:43:28,907 --> 00:43:30,709 The National Security Advisor 829 00:43:30,876 --> 00:43:33,879 is essentially above the Intelligence Community, 830 00:43:34,045 --> 00:43:36,147 the Department of Defense, 831 00:43:36,347 --> 00:43:38,383 and the Foreign Policy Community, 832 00:43:38,549 --> 00:43:40,618 the State Department. 833 00:43:40,786 --> 00:43:44,422 So they have purview over all those three kind of areas 834 00:43:44,589 --> 00:43:48,459 within our entire national security, 835 00:43:48,626 --> 00:43:52,130 foreign policy-making community. 836 00:43:52,297 --> 00:43:54,265 That's big. 837 00:43:54,432 --> 00:43:56,835 I didn't run the Defense Intelligence Agency. 838 00:43:57,035 --> 00:43:59,805 But if a guy stands up who did, and says, 839 00:43:59,971 --> 00:44:02,407 "Well, actually, I sort of-- I sort of know a lot about this 840 00:44:02,573 --> 00:44:05,243 because I ran the Defense Intelligence Agency," 841 00:44:05,410 --> 00:44:07,746 that's a voice with weight and authority. 842 00:44:07,913 --> 00:44:10,181 That is a massive threat to them. 843 00:44:11,382 --> 00:44:13,184 [Flynn] Probably one of the most powerful positions 844 00:44:13,384 --> 00:44:16,454 in the entirety of the government. 845 00:44:17,055 --> 00:44:21,126 Because you are a close personal advisor on a daily basis. 846 00:44:21,292 --> 00:44:23,161 You continue to travel with the president, you know, 847 00:44:23,328 --> 00:44:26,732 you are there in all of the critical meetings, 848 00:44:26,932 --> 00:44:29,634 all the critical decisions for the country. 849 00:44:29,835 --> 00:44:31,837 You know, I was incredibly honored. 850 00:44:32,003 --> 00:44:35,774 I felt, I felt very well prepared. 851 00:44:35,941 --> 00:44:41,713 Um, and I was brutally, brutally attacked. 852 00:44:42,814 --> 00:44:46,284 The bureaucracy targeted those of us 853 00:44:46,451 --> 00:44:48,153 who supported the president's mission 854 00:44:48,319 --> 00:44:50,221 of making the federal bureaucracy 855 00:44:50,421 --> 00:44:51,890 accountable to the American people. 856 00:44:52,090 --> 00:44:53,458 From the outcome of the election 857 00:44:53,624 --> 00:44:56,527 until the Inauguration Day, there is a, 858 00:44:56,694 --> 00:44:59,697 there is an entire operation ongoing 859 00:44:59,865 --> 00:45:02,333 that the government actually plans for. 860 00:45:02,500 --> 00:45:04,169 But-- but now, it was a bit different. 861 00:45:04,335 --> 00:45:07,672 The-- the transition that we had, 862 00:45:07,873 --> 00:45:12,443 it was like we were at war, and it was being made so hard 863 00:45:12,643 --> 00:45:15,747 by elements within our own government. 864 00:45:19,851 --> 00:45:22,253 So this is now the Christmas holidays. 865 00:45:22,453 --> 00:45:24,189 My wife Lori and I said, 866 00:45:24,355 --> 00:45:26,324 before I go back into the White House, 867 00:45:26,491 --> 00:45:28,760 let's go take one last vacation. 868 00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:31,029 And so we decided we're gonna go down to the Dominican Republic. 869 00:45:31,196 --> 00:45:33,564 We went down there for basically a short week, 870 00:45:33,731 --> 00:45:35,834 and I ended up having to shorten it because of 871 00:45:36,001 --> 00:45:38,837 all of the craziness that was happening up in DC. 872 00:45:39,037 --> 00:45:40,505 [reporter] It's an unprecedented strike; 873 00:45:40,705 --> 00:45:42,707 the White House punishing Russia, 874 00:45:42,908 --> 00:45:45,143 in part for interfering in the US election. 875 00:45:45,343 --> 00:45:46,978 [reporter] The US is ordering 876 00:45:47,178 --> 00:45:49,180 35 Russian intelligence operatives 877 00:45:49,380 --> 00:45:52,217 and their families in California and Washington D.C. 878 00:45:52,417 --> 00:45:54,019 out of the country. 879 00:45:54,185 --> 00:45:56,955 So a couple of different phone calls, 880 00:45:57,155 --> 00:46:00,859 but one of whom was with Ambassador Kislyak, right, 881 00:46:01,026 --> 00:46:03,561 the very famous Russian ambassador. 882 00:46:03,728 --> 00:46:06,531 I probably made him more, more famous, right? 883 00:46:06,697 --> 00:46:08,666 Amba-- you know, Ambassador Kislyak, 884 00:46:08,867 --> 00:46:10,568 he's just like, he looks like a grandfather 885 00:46:10,768 --> 00:46:14,272 who smokes too many cigars and probably, 886 00:46:14,439 --> 00:46:16,574 you know, sniffs a little bit too much whiskey, right? 887 00:46:16,774 --> 00:46:19,744 Tonight, a Kremlin spokesman is accusing President Obama 888 00:46:19,945 --> 00:46:22,147 of trying to spoil U.S.-Russian relations. 889 00:46:22,347 --> 00:46:24,883 Look, Russia. 890 00:46:25,050 --> 00:46:28,119 I know you're going to have to do something. 891 00:46:28,286 --> 00:46:30,588 I don't appreciate what happened. 892 00:46:30,755 --> 00:46:34,059 So I'm being honest with them. Because it wasn't our call, 893 00:46:34,225 --> 00:46:36,594 it was the current administration's call. 894 00:46:36,794 --> 00:46:39,197 I don't appreciate what happened, but-- 895 00:46:39,397 --> 00:46:43,201 and I know that you're going to have to take some measures, 896 00:46:43,401 --> 00:46:44,435 but let's not have a tit-for-tat, 897 00:46:44,635 --> 00:46:46,271 because we don't want to-- 898 00:46:46,471 --> 00:46:48,073 we don't want to lose our minds over this and-- and-- 899 00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:50,475 and cause some greater-- some greater outcome, 900 00:46:50,641 --> 00:46:52,177 like going to war. 901 00:46:52,377 --> 00:46:55,280 But I get a phone call a couple of days later, 902 00:46:55,446 --> 00:46:57,682 and he says, "Message received." 903 00:46:57,883 --> 00:47:00,451 They're not going to take any extreme action. 904 00:47:00,618 --> 00:47:03,688 Talk about, you know, being able to settle down 905 00:47:03,889 --> 00:47:06,524 something that could have gotten vastly worse. 906 00:47:06,724 --> 00:47:09,627 Why do we have a State Department? 907 00:47:09,794 --> 00:47:12,297 Why do we have all these intelligence agencies? 908 00:47:12,463 --> 00:47:15,500 It's to, you know, to protect America, 909 00:47:15,666 --> 00:47:17,635 protect American interests, 910 00:47:17,802 --> 00:47:22,640 and to keep dialogue open between our adversaries, 911 00:47:22,807 --> 00:47:26,111 our allies, anyone in between. 912 00:47:26,277 --> 00:47:29,314 So the whole idea that General Flynn 913 00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:32,717 was doing something wrong was ridiculous. 914 00:47:32,918 --> 00:47:36,187 He was doing exactly what he should have been doing at the time. 915 00:47:36,354 --> 00:47:38,556 He was the incoming National Security Advisor. 916 00:47:38,756 --> 00:47:42,060 His job, his role, was to help to coordinate 917 00:47:42,260 --> 00:47:44,930 that whole strategy across all of government 918 00:47:45,130 --> 00:47:48,566 to try to do what? Prevent war. 919 00:47:48,766 --> 00:47:55,506 January 20, 2017, will be remembered as the day 920 00:47:55,706 --> 00:48:01,179 the people became the rulers of this nation again. 921 00:48:01,379 --> 00:48:02,680 [Flynn] We were ready for change 922 00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:04,682 and we needed to get things moving. 923 00:48:04,882 --> 00:48:07,052 One of the things I was looking to do was to 924 00:48:07,218 --> 00:48:11,689 dig in and take a hard look at some of the programs 925 00:48:11,856 --> 00:48:16,361 that the U.S. intelligence community was involved in 926 00:48:16,527 --> 00:48:22,000 that I felt were useless, costly, 927 00:48:22,167 --> 00:48:24,369 and, uh, and corrupt. 928 00:48:24,535 --> 00:48:28,373 And in fact, I sat through a presentation with 929 00:48:28,539 --> 00:48:31,109 the incoming vice president, Mike Pence, 930 00:48:31,309 --> 00:48:34,412 in the, in the transition headquarters. 931 00:48:34,579 --> 00:48:37,382 As we're being presented it, I started asking questions like, 932 00:48:37,548 --> 00:48:41,019 "Well, okay, this program that's been going on 933 00:48:41,186 --> 00:48:44,289 for a long time, what has it accomplished?" 934 00:48:44,489 --> 00:48:45,690 "Oh, we're gonna have to..." 935 00:48:45,856 --> 00:48:47,692 I mean, then you get this. 936 00:48:47,858 --> 00:48:51,262 Again, these are senior guys. These are like the top, 937 00:48:51,429 --> 00:48:53,698 top people in the CIA. 938 00:48:53,864 --> 00:48:55,300 They're like this, and they're like, 939 00:48:55,500 --> 00:48:57,302 "Well, we're gonna have to come back 940 00:48:57,502 --> 00:48:59,637 and we're gonna have to give you a separate briefing on that." 941 00:48:59,837 --> 00:49:03,574 I ended up calling to have that briefing again. 942 00:49:03,741 --> 00:49:06,144 The next time I called for it was-- 943 00:49:06,344 --> 00:49:09,447 it was in the first week I was there, and it was me 944 00:49:09,614 --> 00:49:13,218 as the National Security Advisor now inside the White House. 945 00:49:13,384 --> 00:49:15,987 I got the same briefing, but this time they sent 946 00:49:16,187 --> 00:49:17,989 a whole bunch more people, right? 947 00:49:18,189 --> 00:49:19,724 Because like, they knew, 948 00:49:19,890 --> 00:49:22,727 because now I'm starting to, to dig in. 949 00:49:22,893 --> 00:49:24,295 [slow music playing] 950 00:49:28,366 --> 00:49:31,436 [Flynn] Thousands and thousands of years ago, 951 00:49:31,636 --> 00:49:36,074 guys like Sun Tzu, famous military theoretician, 952 00:49:36,241 --> 00:49:38,076 studied him. 953 00:49:38,243 --> 00:49:41,512 Everybody that's ever served in the military at some level, 954 00:49:41,712 --> 00:49:43,348 stayed in long enough, has-- has... 955 00:49:43,548 --> 00:49:44,682 Hell, even a lot of people in business 956 00:49:44,882 --> 00:49:47,985 study Sun Tzu's Art of War. 957 00:49:48,153 --> 00:49:51,022 Well, what did Sun Tzu say about war? 958 00:49:51,222 --> 00:49:53,458 War is deception. 959 00:49:55,293 --> 00:49:58,296 A war can be a war in the narratives, 960 00:49:58,963 --> 00:50:02,067 in how information is deployed 961 00:50:02,767 --> 00:50:06,804 in order to manipulate the belief system of people. 962 00:50:08,639 --> 00:50:12,277 And so now, instead of, [imitates gunshot] you know, 963 00:50:12,443 --> 00:50:14,279 putting a bullet through somebody's head, 964 00:50:14,445 --> 00:50:18,616 you assassinate them by narrative. 965 00:50:18,783 --> 00:50:21,986 And for a guy by the-- by the name of Sun Tzu, 966 00:50:22,153 --> 00:50:25,356 who wrote about all wars are deception 967 00:50:25,523 --> 00:50:27,325 thousands of years ago, right? 968 00:50:28,459 --> 00:50:30,561 Nothing's changed. 969 00:50:30,761 --> 00:50:34,132 The intelligence agencies are 970 00:50:35,100 --> 00:50:38,803 working with the legacy media 971 00:50:38,969 --> 00:50:41,306 to shape public perception of world events. 972 00:50:41,472 --> 00:50:44,008 That is not speculation. 973 00:50:44,175 --> 00:50:46,010 I'm not some outsider who's guessing at this 974 00:50:46,177 --> 00:50:47,478 because they read about it on the internet. 975 00:50:47,645 --> 00:50:49,013 I've spent my whole life working, 976 00:50:49,180 --> 00:50:50,648 my father worked at ABC News 977 00:50:50,815 --> 00:50:52,717 before going to work for the government; 978 00:50:52,883 --> 00:50:54,385 you know, engaged in the Cold War. 979 00:50:54,552 --> 00:50:57,522 So I've seen both sides of this my whole life, 980 00:50:57,688 --> 00:50:59,324 for 53 years. 981 00:50:59,490 --> 00:51:03,228 So I can say with authority and certainty 982 00:51:03,394 --> 00:51:07,698 that the intel agencies shape news coverage of world events. 983 00:51:07,865 --> 00:51:09,600 And the more significant the world event, 984 00:51:09,800 --> 00:51:13,704 the more meaningful it is, the higher the consequences are, 985 00:51:13,871 --> 00:51:15,440 the more aggressively they shape it. 986 00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:18,376 Because the CIA's, they're masters at propaganda, 987 00:51:18,543 --> 00:51:20,911 they're masters at, at, at what's called 988 00:51:21,078 --> 00:51:24,849 covert influence, covert operations. Right? 989 00:51:25,015 --> 00:51:28,419 Hollywood, the media. 990 00:51:28,586 --> 00:51:32,089 You're not a conspiracy theorist. 991 00:51:32,257 --> 00:51:35,626 You're an observer of verifiable reality 992 00:51:35,826 --> 00:51:39,864 if you state factually, the news, 993 00:51:40,030 --> 00:51:41,299 organizations of record-- 994 00:51:41,499 --> 00:51:42,967 Washington Post and New York Times-- 995 00:51:43,168 --> 00:51:45,403 are working with the intel agencies 996 00:51:45,570 --> 00:51:47,372 to lie to the public 997 00:51:47,538 --> 00:51:49,807 and to hide relevant information from the public. That is a fact. 998 00:51:50,007 --> 00:51:51,376 Eisenhower had his own imperfections, 999 00:51:51,542 --> 00:51:53,244 JFK had his own imperfections, 1000 00:51:53,411 --> 00:51:56,447 but they, you know, but they understood 1001 00:51:56,614 --> 00:51:58,583 that there was something not right. 1002 00:51:58,749 --> 00:52:00,918 And Eisenhower was really the first 1003 00:52:01,085 --> 00:52:03,188 in a very somber warning. 1004 00:52:03,388 --> 00:52:07,392 In the councils of government, we must guard against 1005 00:52:07,592 --> 00:52:09,694 the acquisition of unwarranted influence, 1006 00:52:09,894 --> 00:52:11,229 whether sought or unsought, 1007 00:52:11,429 --> 00:52:14,899 by the military-industrial complex. 1008 00:52:15,065 --> 00:52:16,567 He used this term 1009 00:52:16,734 --> 00:52:18,403 "the military-industrial complex." 1010 00:52:18,569 --> 00:52:21,506 And back then, in Eisenhower's era, 1011 00:52:21,706 --> 00:52:24,342 it was not very well developed. 1012 00:52:24,542 --> 00:52:28,646 Uh, now we have a services complex as well. 1013 00:52:28,813 --> 00:52:32,683 And it seems that there are too many of our leaders 1014 00:52:32,883 --> 00:52:36,521 in the federal government, in the Department of Defense, 1015 00:52:36,721 --> 00:52:41,192 that really put the interests of themselves, 1016 00:52:41,392 --> 00:52:45,496 their crony contractor friends, and, and their careers 1017 00:52:45,663 --> 00:52:47,632 over the national interest. 1018 00:52:47,798 --> 00:52:50,968 Why did a guy like John F. Kennedy get assassinated? 1019 00:52:51,168 --> 00:52:55,773 He got assassinated because he called out something 1020 00:52:55,973 --> 00:53:01,479 that he knew to be a corrupt component of the government 1021 00:53:01,679 --> 00:53:04,382 that was trying to usurp his authority 1022 00:53:04,582 --> 00:53:06,116 as the duly elected 1023 00:53:06,284 --> 00:53:08,719 president of the United States of America. 1024 00:53:08,919 --> 00:53:11,822 I-- I think the assassinations 1025 00:53:12,022 --> 00:53:16,794 of the 1960s are worth reassessing 1026 00:53:16,994 --> 00:53:21,332 because they tell you what the system is capable of. 1027 00:53:21,499 --> 00:53:23,033 Not just individuals, 1028 00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:26,571 but the system in which they live, work, and thrive. 1029 00:53:26,771 --> 00:53:30,007 The imperative to preserve that system is so overwhelming 1030 00:53:30,641 --> 00:53:32,977 that individual players in the system 1031 00:53:33,143 --> 00:53:36,247 can be sacrificed in the name of preserving it. 1032 00:53:36,447 --> 00:53:38,483 Like, you just need to understand the stakes here. 1033 00:53:38,649 --> 00:53:39,884 So, if you're Flynn and you're standing up 1034 00:53:40,050 --> 00:53:41,986 and saying, "Wait a second." 1035 00:53:42,152 --> 00:53:44,088 You know, in retrospect, I think it's fair to, 1036 00:53:44,289 --> 00:53:48,025 to expect that they would effectively try to kill you. 1037 00:53:48,192 --> 00:53:51,696 You know, maybe not shoot you in Dealey Plaza, 1038 00:53:51,862 --> 00:53:53,731 but put you in prison, impoverish your family, 1039 00:53:53,898 --> 00:53:58,035 silence you, dismiss you in the eyes of most as ridiculous. 1040 00:53:58,202 --> 00:54:01,606 I thought it was an opportunity to, to take 1041 00:54:01,806 --> 00:54:04,208 a look, a hard look at organizations, 1042 00:54:04,375 --> 00:54:06,243 one of which I ran. 1043 00:54:06,411 --> 00:54:10,014 And I knew a lot about other aspects of the security state 1044 00:54:10,180 --> 00:54:11,782 because it's not just the intelligence community. 1045 00:54:11,982 --> 00:54:13,183 It's the Department of Defense 1046 00:54:13,351 --> 00:54:14,752 and includes the Department of State, 1047 00:54:14,919 --> 00:54:17,254 includes places like the White House itself, 1048 00:54:17,422 --> 00:54:19,223 and includes the Department of Justice, 1049 00:54:19,390 --> 00:54:21,258 includes the FBI. 1050 00:54:21,426 --> 00:54:23,060 And that revolving door in the intelligence community, 1051 00:54:23,227 --> 00:54:25,863 with social media companies, with big banks, 1052 00:54:26,030 --> 00:54:27,865 with big corporations, 1053 00:54:28,032 --> 00:54:29,767 has been going on for years and years and years. 1054 00:54:29,934 --> 00:54:32,236 They recruit people out of those agencies 1055 00:54:32,403 --> 00:54:33,804 to come work for them. 1056 00:54:34,004 --> 00:54:35,873 It's grotesque. 1057 00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:41,111 I mean, that's when you know, when you turn on CNN or MSNBC, 1058 00:54:41,278 --> 00:54:43,514 and you see an endless parade 1059 00:54:43,714 --> 00:54:45,182 of former federal law enforcement 1060 00:54:45,383 --> 00:54:47,852 or federal intelligence officials paid, 1061 00:54:48,052 --> 00:54:50,855 coming on the air to analyze politics, 1062 00:54:51,055 --> 00:54:52,890 then you know that this organization 1063 00:54:53,090 --> 00:54:54,825 has been captured by those agencies. 1064 00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:58,128 I mean, these are not just former government employees; 1065 00:54:58,295 --> 00:55:00,431 these are people with active security clearances. 1066 00:55:00,631 --> 00:55:03,200 Still, they retain their security clearances. 1067 00:55:03,401 --> 00:55:05,603 So they are in continuous communication 1068 00:55:05,803 --> 00:55:07,772 with their former colleagues at these agencies, 1069 00:55:07,972 --> 00:55:09,974 because it's legal, because they have the clearance. 1070 00:55:10,140 --> 00:55:13,511 And so, they are acting effectively as spokesmen 1071 00:55:13,711 --> 00:55:15,112 for these federal agencies, 1072 00:55:15,279 --> 00:55:17,682 and they're on the air as news analysts. 1073 00:55:17,882 --> 00:55:22,353 I cannot think of a more perverse system. 1074 00:55:22,553 --> 00:55:24,121 I think, I think there were conversations 1075 00:55:24,321 --> 00:55:26,391 and messages between Peter Strzok and someone 1076 00:55:26,591 --> 00:55:28,058 inside of the office of 1077 00:55:28,258 --> 00:55:29,527 the Vice President of the United States. 1078 00:55:32,630 --> 00:55:37,502 In retrospect, it's pretty obvious to me 1079 00:55:37,668 --> 00:55:43,273 that Mike Pence was brought in and presented to Donald Trump, 1080 00:55:43,474 --> 00:55:44,909 who probably didn't know, wouldn't know Mike Pence 1081 00:55:45,109 --> 00:55:47,277 if he got in the shower with him. 1082 00:55:47,478 --> 00:55:49,213 He didn't really know that Mike Pence was the governor of Indiana. 1083 00:55:49,414 --> 00:55:53,984 Pence is a career politician, Trump is a casino promoter; 1084 00:55:54,151 --> 00:55:56,120 like, they haven't had a lot of overlap in their lives. 1085 00:55:56,286 --> 00:55:58,322 How did he wind up getting chosen vice president? 1086 00:55:58,523 --> 00:56:01,726 And I think it's very obviously an effort 1087 00:56:01,926 --> 00:56:05,896 by Republicans in Washington, permanent Washington, 1088 00:56:06,096 --> 00:56:08,833 to put some kind of moderating force right next to Trump. 1089 00:56:08,999 --> 00:56:11,335 "You know, you need him to win the evangelicals." 1090 00:56:11,502 --> 00:56:13,638 That's how they sold him. "He's an evangelical." 1091 00:56:13,804 --> 00:56:15,906 Trump has no idea what an evangelical is. 1092 00:56:16,507 --> 00:56:18,042 And so, they tell him, "You gotta have this guy. 1093 00:56:18,208 --> 00:56:19,977 You can't win without this guy." 1094 00:56:20,144 --> 00:56:22,146 And I'm not saying Pence is a secret agent, 1095 00:56:22,312 --> 00:56:25,983 but clearly, and I watched it firsthand, 1096 00:56:26,150 --> 00:56:29,153 Pence believed that his role was to get Trump, 1097 00:56:29,319 --> 00:56:30,988 to the extent he could, 1098 00:56:31,155 --> 00:56:32,923 to go along with the conventions of, 1099 00:56:33,123 --> 00:56:35,192 of Washington as it existed before Trump got there. 1100 00:56:35,359 --> 00:56:37,495 Obviously. 1101 00:56:37,662 --> 00:56:39,263 Again, I'm not calling him a secret agent. 1102 00:56:39,464 --> 00:56:42,032 But I am saying from day one, 1103 00:56:42,199 --> 00:56:47,705 Pence saw his job as influencing Trump 1104 00:56:47,872 --> 00:56:49,874 to kind of let things continue to go 1105 00:56:50,040 --> 00:56:51,609 roughly the way they were going before. 1106 00:56:51,809 --> 00:56:54,044 That's true. 1107 00:56:54,211 --> 00:56:57,381 I think Pence played an enormously destructive role. 1108 00:56:57,548 --> 00:57:00,851 I know that the-- I know that there were people 1109 00:57:01,018 --> 00:57:04,221 in Pence's office who hated Trump, 1110 00:57:04,388 --> 00:57:05,690 because they told me. 1111 00:57:05,856 --> 00:57:07,792 And if we look at RussiaGate, 1112 00:57:07,992 --> 00:57:10,461 we see different people operating out of Pence's office 1113 00:57:10,661 --> 00:57:11,962 who are part of RussiaGate. 1114 00:57:12,162 --> 00:57:14,264 But just going by the timeline 1115 00:57:14,431 --> 00:57:17,234 and going by what we knew happened, 1116 00:57:17,401 --> 00:57:18,469 I'm like, Pence is making this up. 1117 00:57:18,669 --> 00:57:20,638 [reporter on TV] Good morning. 1118 00:57:20,838 --> 00:57:23,140 Retired General Michael Flynn was during the campaign 1119 00:57:23,340 --> 00:57:25,409 and is now one of the president's top advisors, 1120 00:57:25,610 --> 00:57:27,177 and he has acknowledged 1121 00:57:27,377 --> 00:57:30,014 having contacts with top Russian officials. 1122 00:57:30,214 --> 00:57:33,383 But over the last several weeks, investigators led by the FBI 1123 00:57:33,584 --> 00:57:35,185 have been taking a closer look 1124 00:57:35,385 --> 00:57:37,021 at his calls to the Russian ambassador. 1125 00:57:37,221 --> 00:57:39,223 [Flynn] We had the Japanese delegation 1126 00:57:39,423 --> 00:57:42,326 down at Mar-a-Lago for very serious meetings. 1127 00:57:42,527 --> 00:57:45,796 And-- and while, all while that was going on that weekend, 1128 00:57:46,731 --> 00:57:50,267 Kim Jong Un, over in Korea, starts firing some missiles. 1129 00:57:50,434 --> 00:57:53,771 This is the first time that the Trump administration 1130 00:57:53,938 --> 00:57:57,908 is going to be tested on, on how we respond to that. 1131 00:57:58,809 --> 00:58:01,011 And by the way, 1132 00:58:01,211 --> 00:58:03,447 Rocket Man should have been handled a long time ago. 1133 00:58:03,614 --> 00:58:05,516 [audience applauding wildly] 1134 00:58:05,716 --> 00:58:06,951 [Flynn] They were doing it because Abe of Japan 1135 00:58:07,618 --> 00:58:09,754 is visiting President Trump that weekend. 1136 00:58:12,990 --> 00:58:18,328 I-- I took Abe and Trump into a, a skiff, 1137 00:58:18,495 --> 00:58:21,431 a secure facility that we set up at Mar-a-Lago. 1138 00:58:21,599 --> 00:58:23,768 I took those two in there 1139 00:58:23,934 --> 00:58:25,302 and briefed them on what was happening, 1140 00:58:25,469 --> 00:58:26,837 and I showed them, I showed them all the, 1141 00:58:27,004 --> 00:58:28,873 all the intelligence that we had, 1142 00:58:29,073 --> 00:58:30,741 some photographs of the missiles, all this stuff. 1143 00:58:30,941 --> 00:58:32,610 I went-- took them through the whole thing like I, 1144 00:58:32,777 --> 00:58:35,279 like I'd briefed millions of other intelligence briefings 1145 00:58:35,445 --> 00:58:36,513 in the past. I laid it out in front of them. 1146 00:58:36,681 --> 00:58:39,149 The next day, we st-- 1147 00:58:39,316 --> 00:58:42,486 we had more, more talks with the Japanese 1148 00:58:42,653 --> 00:58:44,521 and we're still, you know, reeling, 1149 00:58:44,689 --> 00:58:47,491 and the media is going crazy about all this stuff. 1150 00:58:47,658 --> 00:58:51,028 I took like 30 minutes to go back over to my room 1151 00:58:51,195 --> 00:58:53,197 because we're going to get back on Air Force One. 1152 00:58:53,363 --> 00:58:56,366 Packing my bags, and I get a phone call and it's Reince Priebus. 1153 00:58:56,533 --> 00:58:58,302 I said, "What can I do? You know, how can I help?" 1154 00:58:58,468 --> 00:59:03,674 And Reince Priebus tells me that I'm in the Situation Room 1155 00:59:03,841 --> 00:59:07,144 with Vice President Pence, 1156 00:59:07,344 --> 00:59:08,746 Deputy Director of the FBI McCabe, 1157 00:59:09,379 --> 00:59:11,415 and Deputy Attorney General 1158 00:59:11,616 --> 00:59:14,151 of the Department of Justice, Sally Yates. 1159 00:59:14,318 --> 00:59:16,320 And they just briefed us. 1160 00:59:16,486 --> 00:59:20,057 They just showed us a document 1161 00:59:20,224 --> 00:59:23,994 that you clearly talked about sanctions. 1162 00:59:24,194 --> 00:59:26,030 This is one of the surreal moments, 1163 00:59:26,230 --> 00:59:27,531 it's like things you never forget, 1164 00:59:27,698 --> 00:59:30,034 because it was such a seminal 1165 00:59:30,200 --> 00:59:33,170 and significant emotional event for me. 1166 00:59:33,337 --> 00:59:34,939 I said, "So what are you, what are you telling me?" 1167 00:59:35,139 --> 00:59:38,042 "Well, you know, the vice president is upset, 1168 00:59:38,208 --> 00:59:40,778 and we're gonna, you know, we're, we're gonna have to, 1169 00:59:40,978 --> 00:59:42,379 you know, we're gonna be talking to you 1170 00:59:42,546 --> 00:59:43,948 when you get back." 1171 00:59:44,148 --> 00:59:45,783 Like I'm a, I'm a fucking schoolchild. 1172 00:59:45,983 --> 00:59:49,119 I show up to the White House the next day. 1173 00:59:49,319 --> 00:59:53,057 All kinds of-- now there's all kinds of rumors 1174 00:59:53,257 --> 00:59:56,393 about Flynn's, you know, going to be fired, resign, you know. 1175 00:59:56,593 --> 00:59:57,628 It's all flying all over the place. 1176 00:59:57,828 --> 01:00:00,264 So it's all leaked. 1177 01:00:00,430 --> 01:00:03,367 The Situation Room is a very secure facility. 1178 01:00:03,533 --> 01:00:05,703 We're talking about people that should know better. 1179 01:00:05,870 --> 01:00:07,537 I mean, if it just those four people 1180 01:00:07,705 --> 01:00:09,974 that were in that room, and me on that conversation. 1181 01:00:10,174 --> 01:00:14,812 That day, Reince comes into my office and says, 1182 01:00:15,012 --> 01:00:17,915 "The president wants you to-- he's gonna want you to resign." 1183 01:00:18,082 --> 01:00:20,050 And I looked at him and I was like, "Really?" 1184 01:00:20,217 --> 01:00:23,620 I said, "Did he say that? 1185 01:00:23,788 --> 01:00:25,489 Is that coming from you or is that coming from him?" 1186 01:00:25,690 --> 01:00:26,957 And he said, "Well, that's coming from him." 1187 01:00:27,124 --> 01:00:28,592 And I said, "Okay." 1188 01:00:28,759 --> 01:00:30,728 I go, "Well, here's what I want you to do, Reince. 1189 01:00:30,895 --> 01:00:32,730 I want you to go let the president know 1190 01:00:32,897 --> 01:00:35,232 that I want to hear it from him." 1191 01:00:35,900 --> 01:00:39,236 And he was like, he kind of like, and he goes, 1192 01:00:39,403 --> 01:00:41,839 "You probably should put together a resignation letter." 1193 01:00:42,039 --> 01:00:44,108 When he called to tell me that he was resigning, you know, 1194 01:00:44,274 --> 01:00:46,110 he told me that "I'm going to resign tonight." 1195 01:00:46,276 --> 01:00:48,245 And I was like, "Oh, my God, really?" 1196 01:00:48,412 --> 01:00:51,415 And it was just sort of surreal. 1197 01:00:51,581 --> 01:00:53,283 And he said, "Yeah." 1198 01:00:53,450 --> 01:00:58,422 He goes, "I'm going to go see the president right now." 1199 01:00:58,588 --> 01:01:00,657 I was like, "Okay. I'll be here when you get home." 1200 01:01:03,928 --> 01:01:06,864 [Flynn] Who was in the meeting was Reince Priebus, 1201 01:01:07,064 --> 01:01:10,400 Vice President Pence, Steve Bannon, 1202 01:01:10,600 --> 01:01:12,636 and Jared Kushner and the president. 1203 01:01:12,837 --> 01:01:14,972 And president, you know, reads the letter. 1204 01:01:15,172 --> 01:01:17,107 H-- he's like, I-- I could tell 1205 01:01:17,307 --> 01:01:19,309 that he was-- he was visibly upset, 1206 01:01:19,476 --> 01:01:20,878 like, but not in an angry way. 1207 01:01:21,078 --> 01:01:23,480 He was like, just upset about the whole thing 1208 01:01:23,647 --> 01:01:26,717 because he knew how hard that I had worked my ass off 1209 01:01:26,917 --> 01:01:29,519 for him to win the presidency. 1210 01:01:29,686 --> 01:01:31,455 And I had-- you know, and I just wasn't 1211 01:01:31,621 --> 01:01:34,058 a guy that-- that comes across as, you know, 1212 01:01:34,258 --> 01:01:36,493 a bullshitter, you know, or a liar. Right? 1213 01:01:36,660 --> 01:01:38,362 He said, "You know..." 1214 01:01:38,528 --> 01:01:39,730 He kind of looked around the room, goes, 1215 01:01:39,930 --> 01:01:41,465 you know, "We okay with this?" 1216 01:01:41,631 --> 01:01:45,169 And looking back, it could have been, 1217 01:01:45,335 --> 01:01:47,537 a couple of things could have happened. 1218 01:01:47,704 --> 01:01:48,839 He could have said, 1219 01:01:49,006 --> 01:01:50,841 "You know what, this is bullshit. 1220 01:01:51,008 --> 01:01:52,509 You two guys kiss and make up," 1221 01:01:53,443 --> 01:01:54,979 because I had already apologized to the vice president 1222 01:01:55,179 --> 01:01:56,914 about whatever it was that he felt like 1223 01:01:57,114 --> 01:01:58,248 I had misled him on. 1224 01:01:58,448 --> 01:02:00,650 I had already apologized to him. 1225 01:02:01,151 --> 01:02:02,920 There was no, you know, hey, let's kiss and make up. 1226 01:02:03,120 --> 01:02:05,389 We got a country to run here. Nope. 1227 01:02:05,555 --> 01:02:08,058 Vice President Pence didn't stand there and say, 1228 01:02:08,658 --> 01:02:11,361 you know, you know what, I-- I can live with this. 1229 01:02:11,528 --> 01:02:13,931 You know, Mike, got it. I understand that, you know, 1230 01:02:14,131 --> 01:02:15,532 the all the dynamics of what was happening 1231 01:02:15,699 --> 01:02:17,267 and everybody's busy. 1232 01:02:17,467 --> 01:02:18,936 You know, we have a country to run. 1233 01:02:19,136 --> 01:02:21,338 Before I left that-- that meeting, 1234 01:02:21,505 --> 01:02:23,974 the president got up, and I walked up to the side 1235 01:02:24,174 --> 01:02:26,043 because I was kind of standing at the corner. 1236 01:02:26,243 --> 01:02:27,744 And I walked up, gave him a hug, 1237 01:02:27,912 --> 01:02:29,746 give him like a, you know, big man hug. 1238 01:02:29,914 --> 01:02:32,616 And I stepped back and I said to him, 1239 01:02:32,817 --> 01:02:35,585 "I'm just gonna give you one warning about one person. 1240 01:02:39,723 --> 01:02:40,958 I'm going to tell you that the person 1241 01:02:41,158 --> 01:02:42,559 that you need to watch out for 1242 01:02:42,759 --> 01:02:44,194 is the deputy director of the FBI, 1243 01:02:44,361 --> 01:02:47,031 and his name is Andrew McCabe." 1244 01:02:47,197 --> 01:02:49,233 And I looked the president dead in the eye. 1245 01:02:49,399 --> 01:02:50,801 And he said, "Okay." 1246 01:02:51,001 --> 01:02:52,937 He didn't really know who he was. 1247 01:02:53,103 --> 01:02:56,240 Now, obviously, Reince Priebus knew him, 1248 01:02:56,406 --> 01:02:59,043 and Pence knew him. They said nothing. 1249 01:02:59,209 --> 01:03:01,078 So whatever they had said to the president 1250 01:03:01,245 --> 01:03:03,747 prior to me going in that meeting, you know, 1251 01:03:03,914 --> 01:03:06,984 I could tell that from my departure, 1252 01:03:07,184 --> 01:03:10,654 you know, my departing, sort of, you know, 1253 01:03:10,855 --> 01:03:15,559 man-love moment with-- with, uh, with President Trump, 1254 01:03:15,725 --> 01:03:17,461 where I could tell that he was upset 1255 01:03:17,627 --> 01:03:21,598 that he had to do this and accept my resignation. 1256 01:03:21,765 --> 01:03:23,934 And maybe he felt like 1257 01:03:24,101 --> 01:03:26,904 if I stepped away from the White House, 1258 01:03:27,071 --> 01:03:28,939 the whole Russia thing would go away. 1259 01:03:29,106 --> 01:03:31,741 And that's when it all began. 1260 01:03:31,942 --> 01:03:34,011 The information was provided by, 1261 01:03:34,211 --> 01:03:36,346 who I don't know, Sally Yates. 1262 01:03:36,546 --> 01:03:40,617 And I was a little surprised because I said, 1263 01:03:40,817 --> 01:03:43,620 "Doesn't sound like he did anything wrong there." 1264 01:03:43,820 --> 01:03:46,023 But he did something wrong 1265 01:03:46,223 --> 01:03:48,458 with respect to the vice president, 1266 01:03:48,658 --> 01:03:50,861 and I thought that was not acceptable. 1267 01:03:51,061 --> 01:03:56,200 As far, as far as the actual making the call, 1268 01:03:56,400 --> 01:03:58,568 he was just doing his job. That was very normal. 1269 01:03:58,768 --> 01:04:00,304 You know, at first, everybody got excited 1270 01:04:00,504 --> 01:04:01,771 because they thought he did something wrong. 1271 01:04:01,972 --> 01:04:03,607 After they thought about it, 1272 01:04:03,807 --> 01:04:06,710 it turned out he was just doing his job. 1273 01:04:06,911 --> 01:04:09,413 So, and I do-- and by the way, with all of that being said, 1274 01:04:09,613 --> 01:04:11,681 I do think he's a fine man. 1275 01:04:11,848 --> 01:04:16,286 So, Reince Priebus told me that they had just read 1276 01:04:16,486 --> 01:04:20,657 a document that Yates and McCabe showed them 1277 01:04:20,857 --> 01:04:23,928 that said I talked about sanctions. 1278 01:04:24,128 --> 01:04:26,730 And we now know that I never talked about sanctions. 1279 01:04:26,931 --> 01:04:29,133 There's a transcript of it. It's public information. 1280 01:04:33,437 --> 01:04:38,008 Okay, it was a, it was a false document, 1281 01:04:38,175 --> 01:04:39,910 which is really bad 1282 01:04:40,110 --> 01:04:42,712 for two senior government officials to create. 1283 01:04:42,879 --> 01:04:45,882 And that document must exist somewhere. Okay? 1284 01:04:46,050 --> 01:04:50,921 Or, the only other potential answer 1285 01:04:51,121 --> 01:04:56,260 is that Reince Priebus lied about reading about sanctions. 1286 01:04:56,460 --> 01:04:58,262 I never talked about sanctions. 1287 01:04:58,462 --> 01:05:00,697 In fact, I, I told the vice president that, 1288 01:05:00,864 --> 01:05:02,899 earlier on. 1289 01:05:03,067 --> 01:05:04,868 I said I didn't talk about sanctions. 1290 01:05:05,035 --> 01:05:07,671 I told the FBI agents that came to my office. 1291 01:05:07,871 --> 01:05:08,805 You look at this White House now 1292 01:05:09,006 --> 01:05:10,474 and it's hard to imagine 1293 01:05:10,674 --> 01:05:11,841 two FBI agents ending up in the same room. 1294 01:05:12,042 --> 01:05:13,677 How did that happen? 1295 01:05:13,877 --> 01:05:14,878 I sent them. 1296 01:05:15,045 --> 01:05:17,547 [audience laughing] 1297 01:05:17,747 --> 01:05:19,783 [Flynn] Comey said in an interview, 1298 01:05:19,984 --> 01:05:21,885 the FBI wanted to send agents over to the White House 1299 01:05:22,086 --> 01:05:23,287 to speak to me. 1300 01:05:25,655 --> 01:05:28,158 He admitted he did that outside the proper channels 1301 01:05:28,358 --> 01:05:30,127 without any discussion or approvals 1302 01:05:30,327 --> 01:05:31,428 from White House council. 1303 01:05:38,268 --> 01:05:41,571 [Adam] This was clearly a setup. 1304 01:05:41,738 --> 01:05:44,941 The government will frequently try to railroad 1305 01:05:45,109 --> 01:05:48,145 various individuals by not having, um, 1306 01:05:48,345 --> 01:05:50,780 by just telling you, "This is a friendly conversation. 1307 01:05:50,947 --> 01:05:54,418 No need to have your lawyer in the office with us." 1308 01:05:54,584 --> 01:05:56,987 And so, what happens in situations like that 1309 01:05:57,187 --> 01:06:02,426 is that the agents who are corrupt 1310 01:06:02,592 --> 01:06:06,430 and, and have an agenda, they're not, 1311 01:06:06,596 --> 01:06:09,566 it's not a genuine, fair investigation. 1312 01:06:09,733 --> 01:06:11,968 They're free to make up whatever they want 1313 01:06:12,136 --> 01:06:15,072 about what transpired because there was no recording, 1314 01:06:15,239 --> 01:06:18,542 and there was no representative of-- of their interviewee who, 1315 01:06:18,742 --> 01:06:20,710 you know, could make, 1316 01:06:20,910 --> 01:06:23,413 you know, a record of what, what transpired. 1317 01:06:23,613 --> 01:06:25,549 [Tracy] A bunch of the seventh-floor people, 1318 01:06:25,749 --> 01:06:27,684 they all got together and had a meeting about this, 1319 01:06:27,884 --> 01:06:29,719 this interview they were going to have with General Flynn, 1320 01:06:29,919 --> 01:06:33,390 the ambush interview. And Bill Priestap in, 1321 01:06:33,590 --> 01:06:35,459 in handwritten notes that looking back, 1322 01:06:35,659 --> 01:06:37,294 you have to wonder if he wrote this down on purpose 1323 01:06:37,461 --> 01:06:39,263 as kind of like a flag, 1324 01:06:39,429 --> 01:06:40,797 because he knew what they were doing was-- 1325 01:06:40,964 --> 01:06:44,534 was wrong or if it was just sheer happenstance 1326 01:06:44,734 --> 01:06:46,236 that he wrote down a series of notes that said, 1327 01:06:46,436 --> 01:06:47,971 "What is the goal? 1328 01:06:48,172 --> 01:06:50,040 Is the goal to get him to tell the truth, 1329 01:06:50,240 --> 01:06:52,209 or to get them to lie so we can get him fired 1330 01:06:52,409 --> 01:06:55,845 or, you know, hold him accountable for lying?" 1331 01:06:56,012 --> 01:06:58,782 So they knew, going in, what their motive like was. 1332 01:06:58,948 --> 01:07:00,517 Do we want him to just tell us the truth, 1333 01:07:00,684 --> 01:07:02,619 or do we want to try and get him to lie to us? 1334 01:07:03,320 --> 01:07:04,688 This is yet another example 1335 01:07:04,854 --> 01:07:09,693 of weaponization of federal investigations. 1336 01:07:09,859 --> 01:07:12,329 Both Peter Strzok and Joseph Bianca wrote 1337 01:07:12,496 --> 01:07:13,830 that he wasn't lying, 1338 01:07:14,030 --> 01:07:15,465 he didn't seem like he was lying, 1339 01:07:15,665 --> 01:07:16,800 he seemed like he was being truthful. 1340 01:07:17,000 --> 01:07:18,402 I mean, they wrote this down. 1341 01:07:18,602 --> 01:07:20,270 Which is why when the DOJ came back 1342 01:07:20,470 --> 01:07:21,871 and said there was no predicate for this... 1343 01:07:24,274 --> 01:07:26,310 they referenced these things because there-- there-- 1344 01:07:26,476 --> 01:07:29,045 they didn't even believe he was lying. 1345 01:07:29,213 --> 01:07:30,514 When you go in to an interview like this, 1346 01:07:30,680 --> 01:07:32,082 you're supposed to document everything; 1347 01:07:32,282 --> 01:07:33,650 it's something called the 302. 1348 01:07:33,817 --> 01:07:35,585 That's the FBI-speak for a form 1349 01:07:35,785 --> 01:07:37,254 that you write down your thoughts. 1350 01:07:37,454 --> 01:07:39,589 They didn't fill those out for weeks. 1351 01:07:39,789 --> 01:07:41,425 And then when Peter Strzok did, 1352 01:07:41,625 --> 01:07:43,493 he had somebody who wasn't even in the interview, 1353 01:07:43,693 --> 01:07:46,096 wasn't even involved, Lisa Page, 1354 01:07:46,296 --> 01:07:47,264 editing it for him. 1355 01:07:49,666 --> 01:07:51,701 You know, I just told them once they fire, 1356 01:07:51,868 --> 01:07:55,105 once you fire Flynn, all you guys are gonna go. 1357 01:07:55,305 --> 01:07:57,174 And that's exactly what happened; 1358 01:07:57,374 --> 01:07:59,109 within, I think, within a year's time, 1359 01:07:59,309 --> 01:08:01,478 they were all gone. 1360 01:08:01,678 --> 01:08:03,613 All the kind of the top advisors around the president. 1361 01:08:03,813 --> 01:08:06,850 As soon as they did that, there'd be blood in the water. 1362 01:08:07,016 --> 01:08:09,085 I'm pretty sure that's what I told to Priebus and-- 1363 01:08:09,253 --> 01:08:10,954 and others. 1364 01:08:11,155 --> 01:08:13,157 [Lori] I really think that those guys 1365 01:08:13,357 --> 01:08:15,359 that were in that White House 1366 01:08:15,559 --> 01:08:18,128 before Mike walked in that room told him, 1367 01:08:18,328 --> 01:08:22,466 "If you get rid of Flynn, the Russia thing will go away." 1368 01:08:22,666 --> 01:08:25,569 I guarantee that they tried to convince him of that. 1369 01:08:25,735 --> 01:08:29,139 And as we know, it only exacerbated after that. 1370 01:08:29,339 --> 01:08:30,907 [woman] Michael Flynn, 1371 01:08:31,107 --> 01:08:33,076 President Donald Trump's National Security Advisor, 1372 01:08:33,277 --> 01:08:37,080 is under investigation by U.S. counterintelligence agents 1373 01:08:37,281 --> 01:08:40,350 for communications he's had with Russian officials. 1374 01:08:40,550 --> 01:08:42,919 [Adam] What Stefan Halper did 1375 01:08:43,119 --> 01:08:46,390 with the help of the leadership of the Office of Net Assessment 1376 01:08:46,556 --> 01:08:48,458 between 2010 and 2016 1377 01:08:48,625 --> 01:08:51,728 was create the institutional infrastructure 1378 01:08:51,895 --> 01:08:55,599 for what became known as RussiaGate, 1379 01:08:55,765 --> 01:09:00,237 normalizing a known Russian intelligence officer. 1380 01:09:00,437 --> 01:09:01,371 Okay, so here you have Chris Steele 1381 01:09:01,571 --> 01:09:03,373 going around Washington saying, 1382 01:09:03,573 --> 01:09:05,709 "Oh yeah, this is Russian intelligence 1383 01:09:05,909 --> 01:09:10,146 that says that Donald Trump did these things." 1384 01:09:10,314 --> 01:09:13,417 That, you know, people wouldn't, you know, take it seriously. 1385 01:09:13,583 --> 01:09:15,752 But we know it was taken very seriously. 1386 01:09:15,919 --> 01:09:21,291 The Steele dossier was used as the predicate 1387 01:09:21,458 --> 01:09:23,993 to launch these FISA investigations. 1388 01:09:24,160 --> 01:09:25,995 The stories about the peeing. 1389 01:09:26,162 --> 01:09:28,565 The stories about the drunkenness, the drug use. 1390 01:09:28,765 --> 01:09:30,700 It's all fake news. 1391 01:09:30,900 --> 01:09:33,437 It's phony stuff. It didn't happen. 1392 01:09:33,603 --> 01:09:40,444 The Steele dossier was sent by special courier 1393 01:09:40,610 --> 01:09:44,948 from John Brennan at CIA to the White House 1394 01:09:45,114 --> 01:09:50,019 to President Obama and marked, you know, eyes only. 1395 01:09:50,186 --> 01:09:52,789 This was Russian disinformation. This is Russian propaganda. 1396 01:09:53,757 --> 01:09:55,659 They had to make Trump look weird. Right? 1397 01:09:55,825 --> 01:09:57,827 Oh, he's freakish. He's bizarre. 1398 01:09:57,994 --> 01:09:59,396 He-- he, that's why he deserves 1399 01:09:59,596 --> 01:10:01,998 these extraordinary punishments, right? 1400 01:10:02,165 --> 01:10:06,536 An indictment, an arraignment, an FBI investigation. 1401 01:10:06,703 --> 01:10:08,472 Same with General Flynn, right? 1402 01:10:08,638 --> 01:10:13,977 This is all about normalizing our enemies' propaganda 1403 01:10:14,143 --> 01:10:19,583 to stage political hit jobs on American candidates for office, 1404 01:10:19,783 --> 01:10:22,185 for the highest office in the country. 1405 01:10:22,352 --> 01:10:28,425 The Steele dossier, which, of course by July of 2016, 1406 01:10:28,625 --> 01:10:32,061 Brennan knew was Russian disinformation 1407 01:10:32,228 --> 01:10:35,164 that was generated by Hillary Clinton 1408 01:10:35,332 --> 01:10:38,067 to smear Donald Trump 1409 01:10:38,234 --> 01:10:40,504 in order to sort of hide her own misconduct. 1410 01:10:40,704 --> 01:10:42,372 Hillary Clinton on the stump this week. 1411 01:10:42,572 --> 01:10:44,240 We're joined now by her campaign manager, Robby Mook. 1412 01:10:44,441 --> 01:10:46,543 [reporter] Thank you for joining us this morning. 1413 01:10:46,743 --> 01:10:49,479 The hand of the Kremlin has been at work in this campaign for some time, 1414 01:10:49,679 --> 01:10:52,716 it's clear that they are supporting Donald Trump. 1415 01:10:52,882 --> 01:10:56,353 Brennan and Obama and Comey, 1416 01:10:57,321 --> 01:11:00,123 they inserted the Steele dossier 1417 01:11:00,324 --> 01:11:06,463 into the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment as a annex. 1418 01:11:07,397 --> 01:11:12,736 So, what they did is they took Russian disinformation, 1419 01:11:12,902 --> 01:11:16,272 made it into a U.S. intelligence product 1420 01:11:16,440 --> 01:11:21,478 for the purpose of being able to cover themselves 1421 01:11:21,678 --> 01:11:24,814 if they were ever questioned about this nonsense 1422 01:11:25,014 --> 01:11:26,816 in the Steele dossier. 1423 01:11:27,016 --> 01:11:28,418 Sourced the Russian intelligence, 1424 01:11:28,585 --> 01:11:32,121 clear hit job against candidate Trump 1425 01:11:32,288 --> 01:11:33,289 and then President Trump. 1426 01:11:33,457 --> 01:11:34,958 They could say, "Oh, look, 1427 01:11:35,124 --> 01:11:38,294 this is a U.S. government document. 1428 01:11:38,462 --> 01:11:40,129 It's from the intelligence community. 1429 01:11:40,296 --> 01:11:42,499 It is from the 17 intelligence agencies 1430 01:11:42,699 --> 01:11:44,133 of the United States government. 1431 01:11:44,300 --> 01:11:47,771 Don't ask me about this. It's been vetted." 1432 01:11:47,937 --> 01:11:53,076 It's this way of very cynically covering up a horrendous crime 1433 01:11:53,242 --> 01:11:55,178 and normalizing it retroactively. 1434 01:11:55,379 --> 01:11:59,315 It was an act of desperation 1435 01:11:59,483 --> 01:12:01,985 because the Obama administration and the Biden administration 1436 01:12:02,151 --> 01:12:04,153 knew that if Michael Flynn stayed there 1437 01:12:04,320 --> 01:12:08,658 as Trump's National Security Advisor, they were fucked. 1438 01:12:08,825 --> 01:12:10,760 Because he was going to lash back 1439 01:12:10,927 --> 01:12:14,998 at all of what they did in the Middle East, 1440 01:12:15,164 --> 01:12:17,166 what they did, or were doing 1441 01:12:17,333 --> 01:12:19,936 to compromise the United States of America. 1442 01:12:20,103 --> 01:12:25,274 He was squeaky clean. They couldn't find shit on him. 1443 01:12:25,442 --> 01:12:27,210 And they dug deep. 1444 01:12:27,411 --> 01:12:30,947 There was some story like, oh, yeah, and then, and then 1445 01:12:31,147 --> 01:12:33,316 General Flynn left this event, 1446 01:12:33,517 --> 01:12:37,387 this dinner, with, um, with this woman who is 1447 01:12:37,587 --> 01:12:39,623 half Russian, half British. 1448 01:12:39,789 --> 01:12:41,858 Well, of course, nothing of the sort happened. 1449 01:12:42,025 --> 01:12:43,827 Nothing of the sort could happen because here-- 1450 01:12:43,993 --> 01:12:46,162 here is the director of the DIA, 1451 01:12:46,329 --> 01:12:48,197 a very important role, 1452 01:12:48,364 --> 01:12:52,869 and so he's not going anywhere off on his own with anyone. 1453 01:12:53,036 --> 01:12:55,872 And she's just this young woman who's married, 1454 01:12:56,039 --> 01:12:57,641 you know, I think at the time, if I remember right, 1455 01:12:57,807 --> 01:13:00,209 she was pregnant or getting ready to have a baby. 1456 01:13:00,376 --> 01:13:02,011 Her life was ruined. 1457 01:13:02,211 --> 01:13:05,982 All because of this guy named-- this-- the-- 1458 01:13:06,182 --> 01:13:07,517 this guy they call Halper, right? 1459 01:13:08,452 --> 01:13:10,153 His name is Halper, Stefan Halper. 1460 01:13:10,319 --> 01:13:12,355 The Walrus, right? 1461 01:13:12,522 --> 01:13:14,524 Guy's a-- he's a-- he's a walking steam bath 1462 01:13:14,691 --> 01:13:17,260 because he sweats all the time. 1463 01:13:17,461 --> 01:13:22,398 And have to have your family exposed to that kind of, 1464 01:13:22,566 --> 01:13:25,502 um, that kind of ugliness 1465 01:13:26,135 --> 01:13:28,438 because someone is determined to destroy you, 1466 01:13:28,638 --> 01:13:30,239 these are very hard things. 1467 01:13:30,406 --> 01:13:32,876 But again, it comes back to like why, you know, 1468 01:13:33,042 --> 01:13:34,611 why people are mad about this story. 1469 01:13:34,811 --> 01:13:39,683 Why I'm mad about this story. Why it hurt... 1470 01:13:39,849 --> 01:13:42,752 Why it was painful for other families to watch too, 1471 01:13:42,919 --> 01:13:46,523 to imagine what it was like for his family to, um, 1472 01:13:46,690 --> 01:13:50,426 to be targeted by these animals like that. 1473 01:13:50,594 --> 01:13:52,028 They disparaged him 1474 01:13:52,195 --> 01:13:54,531 as much as they possibly could in the media. 1475 01:13:54,698 --> 01:13:57,801 It was all bullshit. It was all bullshit. 1476 01:13:58,001 --> 01:13:59,969 And we were sitting there as family going, 1477 01:14:00,169 --> 01:14:01,404 "Michael fucking has a girlfriend, 1478 01:14:01,571 --> 01:14:02,472 and get to hear he had an affair 1479 01:14:02,672 --> 01:14:04,107 with some Russian girl?" 1480 01:14:04,273 --> 01:14:08,645 I called her up. I called her up. 1481 01:14:08,845 --> 01:14:11,214 I said, "Hey, tell me about your relationship 1482 01:14:11,380 --> 01:14:13,049 with my brother Mike. 1483 01:14:13,216 --> 01:14:15,585 You're in trouble here. You name is all over the place." 1484 01:14:15,752 --> 01:14:17,220 We kind of endeared ourselves to her. 1485 01:14:17,386 --> 01:14:20,089 I wanted to find out. Lori needed to know. 1486 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. 1487 01:14:24,060 --> 01:14:26,229 But how do you think she felt when she had to go see her mother 1488 01:14:26,429 --> 01:14:27,864 and they read it in the paper? 1489 01:14:28,064 --> 01:14:29,499 They didn't give a shit about how he felt 1490 01:14:29,699 --> 01:14:30,934 or how that affected his family. 1491 01:14:33,236 --> 01:14:37,741 Obama and Biden did not want General Flynn 1492 01:14:37,907 --> 01:14:44,147 giving them a proctology exam without any kind of anesthesia. 1493 01:14:45,148 --> 01:14:47,817 I've said that I'm surprised that they haven't killed me, 1494 01:14:47,984 --> 01:14:50,754 surprised that they've let me continue to live. 1495 01:14:51,655 --> 01:14:52,856 Um... 1496 01:14:56,459 --> 01:14:59,262 Maybe they feel like they've done enough damage to where, 1497 01:14:59,428 --> 01:15:00,964 no matter whenever I pop my head up, 1498 01:15:01,130 --> 01:15:02,532 wherever I'm at, they can just kind of go, 1499 01:15:02,732 --> 01:15:04,100 "Oh, that's the conspiracy theorist. 1500 01:15:04,267 --> 01:15:06,636 He's done this. He's done that." 1501 01:15:06,803 --> 01:15:09,606 And I know that there's an entire movement of people, 1502 01:15:09,773 --> 01:15:13,977 an organization, that they-- their sole purpose in life 1503 01:15:14,143 --> 01:15:17,647 is to make sure no matter what I do, 1504 01:15:17,814 --> 01:15:22,051 to find a way to show it in a dark light. 1505 01:15:22,251 --> 01:15:25,054 You know, we've gone from the physical assassination 1506 01:15:25,254 --> 01:15:27,523 of a president of the United States 1507 01:15:27,691 --> 01:15:30,560 to a character assassination of a National Security Advisor. 1508 01:15:35,331 --> 01:15:37,801 [Tracy] General Flynn had a private company 1509 01:15:38,001 --> 01:15:41,004 he formed with his son and a business partner. 1510 01:15:41,170 --> 01:15:44,307 They were engaged by a private citizen in Turkey 1511 01:15:44,473 --> 01:15:48,912 to do some work on behalf of this private businessman. 1512 01:15:49,112 --> 01:15:52,081 So there was no need to report this 1513 01:15:52,281 --> 01:15:54,751 because the private businessman was not working 1514 01:15:54,951 --> 01:15:57,587 on behalf of the Turkish government. 1515 01:15:57,787 --> 01:15:59,856 Did not receive any money from the Turkish government, 1516 01:16:00,023 --> 01:16:01,691 wasn't working with the Turkish government at all. 1517 01:16:01,858 --> 01:16:03,593 This was a private businessman 1518 01:16:03,793 --> 01:16:08,932 engaging the Flynn Intel Group to do a job for him. 1519 01:16:18,742 --> 01:16:20,209 [Devin] All the talk was about 1520 01:16:20,376 --> 01:16:23,680 FARA violations, Logan Act violations. 1521 01:16:23,847 --> 01:16:25,949 I mean, lots of crazy, far-fetched laws 1522 01:16:26,149 --> 01:16:28,584 that had either never been enforced, 1523 01:16:28,752 --> 01:16:30,920 or were rarely enforced, and if enforced, they were like 1524 01:16:31,087 --> 01:16:32,856 a slap on the wrist type of, type of thing, 1525 01:16:33,022 --> 01:16:36,192 not some multi-year, multi-pronged investigation. 1526 01:16:36,359 --> 01:16:39,028 This Laufman guy 1527 01:16:39,195 --> 01:16:41,397 who's running this FARA office, 1528 01:16:41,564 --> 01:16:43,366 they send a letter to Mike saying, 1529 01:16:43,532 --> 01:16:46,135 hey, you need to fill out this FARA form. 1530 01:16:46,335 --> 01:16:48,604 So, he didn't have to fill out a FARA form at all 1531 01:16:48,772 --> 01:16:50,606 because he wasn't working for the Turkish government. 1532 01:16:50,774 --> 01:16:52,441 He was working for a Turkish businessman. 1533 01:16:52,608 --> 01:16:53,743 He's got a lawyer at the time. 1534 01:16:53,910 --> 01:16:55,611 She says, "Well, the number one 1535 01:16:55,779 --> 01:16:58,948 FARA filing office in the country 1536 01:16:59,115 --> 01:17:01,450 is this Covington & Burling." 1537 01:17:01,617 --> 01:17:04,153 You know, you figure, "Ah, I really don't need to do this, 1538 01:17:04,353 --> 01:17:05,822 but I'm going to consult these attorneys 1539 01:17:06,022 --> 01:17:07,957 to see if I really need to file." 1540 01:17:08,124 --> 01:17:09,592 And they say, "You know what, 1541 01:17:09,759 --> 01:17:11,294 just to be on the safe side, file." 1542 01:17:11,460 --> 01:17:12,729 You're filling out an application 1543 01:17:12,896 --> 01:17:14,931 and you know, Covington Burling, 1544 01:17:15,098 --> 01:17:19,568 the number one FARA filing law firm in the country, 1545 01:17:19,736 --> 01:17:21,237 is filling it out. 1546 01:17:21,404 --> 01:17:23,406 Okay, we're in good shape, right? 1547 01:17:23,572 --> 01:17:26,609 So, um, but how did they blitz him with this 1548 01:17:26,776 --> 01:17:29,679 FARA violation because they come back 1549 01:17:29,879 --> 01:17:32,015 and they start adding that, well, it wasn't a violation. 1550 01:17:32,215 --> 01:17:36,119 They just put the wording into as many documents as they could. 1551 01:17:36,285 --> 01:17:39,122 They would have some fishy line about FARA. 1552 01:17:39,288 --> 01:17:41,424 What that did was, 1553 01:17:41,590 --> 01:17:45,294 that let the media take the term FARA, 1554 01:17:45,461 --> 01:17:48,097 which is Foreign Agent Registration Act, 1555 01:17:48,264 --> 01:17:50,433 and just call him a foreign agent. 1556 01:17:50,599 --> 01:17:53,136 So now he gets blitzed, and he's a foreign spy. 1557 01:17:53,302 --> 01:17:54,938 He's another spy, you know, he's a Russian spy, 1558 01:17:55,104 --> 01:17:56,472 he's a Turkish spy. 1559 01:17:56,639 --> 01:17:59,208 He's all, he's all kinds of spies, you know? 1560 01:17:59,408 --> 01:18:01,144 There are so many people who are collateral damage 1561 01:18:01,310 --> 01:18:04,513 that's-- whose stories are so intricate, 1562 01:18:04,680 --> 01:18:07,784 that if you can't get people to understand this big story 1563 01:18:07,951 --> 01:18:10,787 of General Flynn, how in-- how ever would you be able to 1564 01:18:10,954 --> 01:18:12,688 get them to understand the intricacies? 1565 01:18:12,856 --> 01:18:15,458 So, again, at the end of the day, 1566 01:18:15,624 --> 01:18:17,660 the Flynn Intel Group was retained to do business 1567 01:18:17,827 --> 01:18:19,462 for someone who was not attached 1568 01:18:19,628 --> 01:18:21,898 to the Turkish government at all. 1569 01:18:22,098 --> 01:18:24,801 And they lied and said he was. 1570 01:18:24,968 --> 01:18:27,070 They are smart again, right? They're going to take out 1571 01:18:27,270 --> 01:18:30,073 the number-one military intelligence 1572 01:18:30,273 --> 01:18:32,541 officer of our country, the National Security Advisor 1573 01:18:32,708 --> 01:18:35,644 who's about to find out everything. 1574 01:18:35,812 --> 01:18:36,813 What do we do now? 1575 01:18:37,013 --> 01:18:38,848 Let's go after his son. 1576 01:18:41,350 --> 01:18:43,486 [Michael Jr.] Was there anything more significant 1577 01:18:43,652 --> 01:18:46,689 on this timeline to you, Dad, than anything else, or...? 1578 01:18:46,856 --> 01:18:48,925 [Flynn] [exhales] You know. 1579 01:18:49,125 --> 01:18:51,928 [Michael Jr.] I mean, for me... 1580 01:18:52,128 --> 01:18:53,897 - it's that. - [Flynn] Yeah. 1581 01:18:54,063 --> 01:18:55,398 That's the, if there's one thing that I think about, 1582 01:18:55,564 --> 01:18:57,266 - you know, more than-- - [Flynn] Yeah. 1583 01:18:57,466 --> 01:19:01,270 That, that's the meeting where they conspired to 1584 01:19:01,470 --> 01:19:04,707 basically undermine the presidency 1585 01:19:04,874 --> 01:19:07,076 of the United States of America. 1586 01:19:07,243 --> 01:19:09,045 We live in a time right now 1587 01:19:09,212 --> 01:19:11,080 where more than any other time in American history... 1588 01:19:13,883 --> 01:19:17,020 the government, investigative agencies, 1589 01:19:17,186 --> 01:19:19,588 especially the FBI and the Department of Justice, 1590 01:19:19,755 --> 01:19:21,958 have been weaponized against the American people. 1591 01:19:24,393 --> 01:19:25,761 [producer] When did it dawn on you 1592 01:19:25,929 --> 01:19:29,065 that Michael would be a target? 1593 01:19:29,265 --> 01:19:31,968 [Flynn] Probably by the middle of the summer, I started to feel that, 1594 01:19:32,168 --> 01:19:34,670 because the FBI is knocking on his door. 1595 01:19:34,871 --> 01:19:38,007 This is when I-- I had a really difficult time being able to communicate. 1596 01:19:38,207 --> 01:19:40,743 We had to communicate through a lawyer, so I can't even talk to my son. 1597 01:19:40,910 --> 01:19:44,480 - [producer] Whose advice is that? - My lawyers at the time. 1598 01:19:44,680 --> 01:19:47,750 Looking back, it was, it was horrific. 1599 01:19:47,951 --> 01:19:50,519 And then, all of a sudden, there was-- 1600 01:19:50,719 --> 01:19:55,058 started to be newspaper articles coming out 1601 01:19:55,224 --> 01:19:59,762 that the Department of Justice is starting to look harder at, 1602 01:19:59,929 --> 01:20:02,331 at General Flynn's son, Michael. 1603 01:20:03,266 --> 01:20:04,733 My team of lawyers was, was, 1604 01:20:04,901 --> 01:20:07,336 was represented by a gigantic law firm, one of, 1605 01:20:07,536 --> 01:20:09,839 they call them the white-shoe law firms in Washington, DC, 1606 01:20:10,039 --> 01:20:11,474 Covington & Burling, 1607 01:20:11,640 --> 01:20:13,476 and you really do feel like 1608 01:20:13,642 --> 01:20:15,979 they have your best interests at heart. 1609 01:20:16,145 --> 01:20:21,017 You know, they come across as, as professionals. 1610 01:20:21,217 --> 01:20:22,185 And man, was I wrong. 1611 01:20:24,753 --> 01:20:26,923 A moment of, of misjudgment on my part. 1612 01:20:32,261 --> 01:20:35,999 That's all part of that Washington, DC, establishment. 1613 01:20:36,165 --> 01:20:40,970 You're looking at 25 years and about a half a dozen felonies. 1614 01:20:41,137 --> 01:20:45,108 Okay. And they're gonna go after your son. 1615 01:20:47,343 --> 01:20:50,846 And I'm like, "You gotta be shitting me. For what?" 1616 01:20:51,014 --> 01:20:53,216 And I'm sitting there, height of the, 1617 01:20:53,416 --> 01:20:57,153 of the Mueller investigation. It's really just kicking in. 1618 01:20:57,320 --> 01:21:01,290 There's nobody around, okay; who I had was my family. 1619 01:21:01,457 --> 01:21:03,859 I didn't have big media stars. 1620 01:21:04,027 --> 01:21:05,461 I didn't have big political stars. 1621 01:21:05,628 --> 01:21:06,495 I didn't have the White House. 1622 01:21:07,463 --> 01:21:09,899 We're already into our house being sold. 1623 01:21:10,099 --> 01:21:12,168 We're already into an ungodly amount of money that was-- 1624 01:21:12,335 --> 01:21:13,903 that it's costing, and you're just 1625 01:21:14,103 --> 01:21:15,704 kind of like, "I got to stop this. 1626 01:21:15,871 --> 01:21:17,006 You know, I got to stop this bleeding." 1627 01:21:17,941 --> 01:21:20,143 It was mental and emotional bleeding. 1628 01:21:21,044 --> 01:21:23,079 And it was happening to me, 1629 01:21:23,279 --> 01:21:25,748 my wife, my kids, my family. 1630 01:21:25,949 --> 01:21:30,819 I'll give my life for my family 1631 01:21:30,987 --> 01:21:32,421 because I would have given my life for this country. 1632 01:21:32,621 --> 01:21:36,692 They're the reason why I fight. 1633 01:21:36,859 --> 01:21:42,898 What they did-- they knew that nothing was there. 1634 01:21:43,066 --> 01:21:45,501 Michael Flynn Jr. worked for Flynn Intel Group 1635 01:21:45,668 --> 01:21:48,004 with his dad and the business partner. 1636 01:21:48,171 --> 01:21:55,011 So, they saw him as a weapon to wield because 1637 01:21:55,178 --> 01:21:58,647 they were going after General Flynn's business partner 1638 01:21:58,847 --> 01:22:01,650 and Ekim Alptekin. 1639 01:22:01,850 --> 01:22:03,519 As sort of a pawn, 1640 01:22:03,686 --> 01:22:07,923 they looped in a threat against Michael Flynn, Jr. 1641 01:22:08,091 --> 01:22:09,758 to get General Flynn to plead guilty. 1642 01:22:09,925 --> 01:22:12,361 All right, a lot of people, you know, 1643 01:22:12,528 --> 01:22:14,597 asked us that question: "Why did you guys even go with Covington & Burling?" 1644 01:22:14,763 --> 01:22:17,200 You know, they were the DC FARA experts. 1645 01:22:17,366 --> 01:22:19,102 They never really fought for anything. 1646 01:22:19,268 --> 01:22:21,070 You know, they-- if you had something on Trump, 1647 01:22:21,237 --> 01:22:22,938 that, you know, it would help you. 1648 01:22:23,106 --> 01:22:26,409 They brought my son in, 1649 01:22:26,575 --> 01:22:27,977 knowing where he was in his life, 1650 01:22:28,177 --> 01:22:32,648 and, and knowing how bad 1651 01:22:32,848 --> 01:22:34,950 the rule of law system is in Washington, DC. 1652 01:22:35,118 --> 01:22:38,421 That was a major pain point. Huge. 1653 01:22:38,587 --> 01:22:41,324 All the lawyers then became involved 1654 01:22:41,524 --> 01:22:45,094 in something that is absolutely prohibited 1655 01:22:45,261 --> 01:22:46,996 in federal court in that they had 1656 01:22:47,196 --> 01:22:49,265 an off-the-books part of the deal. 1657 01:22:49,465 --> 01:22:51,200 They had this deal 1658 01:22:51,400 --> 01:22:53,502 that was communicated to General Flynn 1659 01:22:53,702 --> 01:22:56,572 where the government wouldn't put it in writing, 1660 01:22:56,772 --> 01:23:02,078 but they would agree orally that if he accepted this plea, 1661 01:23:02,278 --> 01:23:04,347 they wouldn't prosecute his son. 1662 01:23:07,983 --> 01:23:10,986 What parent could ever say no to that? 1663 01:23:11,154 --> 01:23:14,790 What parent could ever fight back against that, 1664 01:23:14,957 --> 01:23:18,961 where they're threatening to put your son in jail 1665 01:23:19,128 --> 01:23:22,265 right before that son's oldest son is born, 1666 01:23:22,431 --> 01:23:24,200 right before their grandson's about to be born? 1667 01:23:28,437 --> 01:23:32,041 We have rules in federal court to stop that, 1668 01:23:32,241 --> 01:23:35,611 to make sure that these off-the-book deals don't happen. 1669 01:23:38,281 --> 01:23:41,284 And those lawyers on both sides, the Special Counsel's Office 1670 01:23:41,450 --> 01:23:44,220 and the Covington & Burling lawyers, 1671 01:23:44,420 --> 01:23:47,623 walked into federal court and they lied. 1672 01:23:47,790 --> 01:23:50,493 They lied when the judge asked if there was any 1673 01:23:50,659 --> 01:23:52,828 off-the-books deals. 1674 01:23:52,995 --> 01:23:56,065 They said there wasn't. There was. 1675 01:23:56,265 --> 01:23:59,635 And it was all part of this effort 1676 01:23:59,802 --> 01:24:01,204 for Covington & Burling 1677 01:24:01,370 --> 01:24:02,805 to protect their own hide, 1678 01:24:02,971 --> 01:24:05,808 rather than to look out for their client. 1679 01:24:05,974 --> 01:24:08,077 It was disgusting. 1680 01:24:08,277 --> 01:24:10,879 And then also, don't forget that if you do plead 1681 01:24:11,046 --> 01:24:13,649 not guilty and go to trial, 1682 01:24:13,816 --> 01:24:16,652 you're going to have a DC jury, you're going to have a DC judge, 1683 01:24:16,819 --> 01:24:18,854 and then you'll probably be found guilty, 1684 01:24:19,021 --> 01:24:21,090 and, you know, you're-- you're looking at 20, 1685 01:24:21,290 --> 01:24:23,526 25 years in prison. 1686 01:24:23,692 --> 01:24:26,895 So, this is probably the best deal for you to do this. 1687 01:24:27,062 --> 01:24:29,064 And then a lot of people say, "Oh, even if that was my son, 1688 01:24:29,232 --> 01:24:30,699 I would have never done that." No. 1689 01:24:30,866 --> 01:24:31,900 You don't know what you would have done 1690 01:24:32,067 --> 01:24:33,702 unless you were in our shoes, 1691 01:24:33,869 --> 01:24:35,604 and having to have your lawyers tell you 1692 01:24:35,804 --> 01:24:38,441 that people that you thought were doing the best for you, 1693 01:24:38,641 --> 01:24:40,709 that this was the best thing for you, 1694 01:24:40,876 --> 01:24:43,112 and this is the only way you're going to get out of this 1695 01:24:43,312 --> 01:24:46,115 is if you sign this plea deal. So that's what we did. 1696 01:24:46,315 --> 01:24:48,217 People plead guilty to crimes they did not commit 1697 01:24:48,384 --> 01:24:51,420 every single day in this country. 1698 01:24:51,587 --> 01:24:53,289 A lot of the times, it's minorities 1699 01:24:53,489 --> 01:24:55,624 that are pleading guilty to crimes they didn't commit, 1700 01:24:55,824 --> 01:24:58,694 because who has the resources 1701 01:24:58,894 --> 01:25:03,899 to fight the juggernaut that is the American justice system? 1702 01:25:04,066 --> 01:25:07,102 And so, the government starts leaning on Covington 1703 01:25:07,270 --> 01:25:09,705 and Covington starts leaning on General Flynn 1704 01:25:09,872 --> 01:25:13,209 to accept a plea deal. 1705 01:25:13,376 --> 01:25:19,948 Single count of a violation of 18 USC-1001, 1706 01:25:20,115 --> 01:25:22,251 which is providing a false statement to the government. 1707 01:25:26,455 --> 01:25:28,557 [woman] But of course, the unbelievable turn of events 1708 01:25:28,757 --> 01:25:30,226 in today's news happened in federal court 1709 01:25:30,426 --> 01:25:32,094 in Washington, DC, 1710 01:25:32,295 --> 01:25:35,231 in the courtroom of Judge Emmet Sullivan. 1711 01:25:35,431 --> 01:25:38,201 [Flynn] And then the prosecution is the Department of Justice. 1712 01:25:38,401 --> 01:25:40,903 And the Department of Justice had probably about 20 lawyers there. 1713 01:25:41,069 --> 01:25:42,571 One of them was the Solicitor General 1714 01:25:42,738 --> 01:25:44,640 for the United States of America. 1715 01:25:44,807 --> 01:25:50,513 And the prosecutor, in my case, his name was Brandon Van Grack. 1716 01:25:50,713 --> 01:25:52,415 So we go into this courtroom, 1717 01:25:52,581 --> 01:25:54,250 one of the most packed hearings that they ever had 1718 01:25:54,417 --> 01:25:57,353 in the federal courthouse of Washington, DC. 1719 01:25:57,553 --> 01:25:59,154 Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, 1720 01:25:59,322 --> 01:26:01,690 the judge goes right off the rails, 1721 01:26:01,890 --> 01:26:03,859 and he started going down this other path and... 1722 01:26:04,059 --> 01:26:05,428 well, he said, "You turned your back on your country." 1723 01:26:05,628 --> 01:26:07,530 [Jake] It sure sounded as though 1724 01:26:07,730 --> 01:26:10,065 Judge Sullivan was going to send Flynn to the clink 1725 01:26:10,266 --> 01:26:12,901 for at least some period of time. 1726 01:26:13,101 --> 01:26:17,039 [reporter] It did, Jake. The judge stressed that prison time was not off the table. 1727 01:26:17,240 --> 01:26:20,643 [Flynn] And my lawyers tell me, going into this hearing, 1728 01:26:20,843 --> 01:26:23,078 "Don't worry, you're not going to have to say much here. 1729 01:26:23,279 --> 01:26:25,681 The prosecution's going to do most of the talking." Okay? 1730 01:26:25,848 --> 01:26:27,850 And just the opposite happened. 1731 01:26:28,016 --> 01:26:29,685 You know, I get questions from the judge. 1732 01:26:29,852 --> 01:26:31,387 And I'm answering all the questions 1733 01:26:31,587 --> 01:26:33,856 and then the judge starts to accuse me. 1734 01:26:34,022 --> 01:26:36,225 And he does this very famous turns, 1735 01:26:36,425 --> 01:26:40,629 he turns, and he grabs the flag behind his, 1736 01:26:40,796 --> 01:26:43,131 where his seat behind his bench, 1737 01:26:43,299 --> 01:26:45,334 and he grabs the flag, and he turns back and he says, 1738 01:26:45,501 --> 01:26:47,035 you know, basically accuses me 1739 01:26:47,202 --> 01:26:49,204 of committing treason. "Could he have been-- 1740 01:26:49,372 --> 01:26:52,408 could he have been tried for treason? 1741 01:26:52,608 --> 01:26:53,809 Or could he have been found guilty of treason?" 1742 01:26:53,976 --> 01:26:55,511 To the prosecutor. 1743 01:26:55,678 --> 01:26:57,746 And Grack is, he was kind of taken by it too. 1744 01:26:57,946 --> 01:27:00,483 The DOJ lawyer. 1745 01:27:00,649 --> 01:27:03,185 And he essentially says, you know, "No, Your Honor. 1746 01:27:03,352 --> 01:27:04,987 No, Your Honor." 1747 01:27:05,153 --> 01:27:07,356 But, but the, so the judge is sitting there 1748 01:27:07,523 --> 01:27:09,157 accusing me of treason in a court, 1749 01:27:09,325 --> 01:27:11,059 and I'm not even in there for any of that. 1750 01:27:11,226 --> 01:27:13,696 He's hugging the American flag and he's saying, you know, 1751 01:27:13,862 --> 01:27:16,265 "You turned your back on this country." 1752 01:27:16,465 --> 01:27:18,701 We were shocked. There had been no trial. 1753 01:27:18,867 --> 01:27:20,336 There had been no exchange of evidence. 1754 01:27:20,503 --> 01:27:22,271 There had been no cross-examinations. 1755 01:27:22,471 --> 01:27:24,440 I thought his ini-- his outburst 1756 01:27:24,640 --> 01:27:28,210 calling General Michael Flynn a traitor... 1757 01:27:28,377 --> 01:27:30,078 I mean, it was-- he was the one 1758 01:27:30,245 --> 01:27:32,247 who brought dishonor upon his courtroom 1759 01:27:32,415 --> 01:27:35,050 and upon himself, right, to scream out those things. 1760 01:27:35,217 --> 01:27:36,719 I mean, what an ignoramus. 1761 01:27:36,885 --> 01:27:38,220 There's no doubt in my mind 1762 01:27:38,387 --> 01:27:40,222 he did it for the benefit of the media 1763 01:27:40,389 --> 01:27:42,725 because the media was on pins and needles that day. 1764 01:27:42,891 --> 01:27:44,460 You know, they call them the talking heads 1765 01:27:44,660 --> 01:27:46,929 on these shows, who are these former 1766 01:27:47,095 --> 01:27:50,633 intelligence community officials, like Brennan, 1767 01:27:50,833 --> 01:27:52,468 like Clapper, 1768 01:27:52,668 --> 01:27:54,036 like Comey, 1769 01:27:54,236 --> 01:27:56,339 like McCabe. 1770 01:27:56,539 --> 01:27:59,375 [Michael Jr.] Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Sally Yates; 1771 01:27:59,542 --> 01:28:00,943 you can't control these people. 1772 01:28:01,109 --> 01:28:04,079 And they're accusing me of spying 1773 01:28:04,246 --> 01:28:06,649 against the United States of America for Russia. 1774 01:28:06,849 --> 01:28:09,051 Of course, the media takes off, takes off with, "Well, even, you know, 1775 01:28:09,217 --> 01:28:11,820 even Judge Sullivan, you know, in the courtroom 1776 01:28:12,020 --> 01:28:13,856 called General Flynn traitor." 1777 01:28:14,056 --> 01:28:17,259 [Flynn] The judge, I believe, realized 1778 01:28:17,460 --> 01:28:19,462 that what he just did 1779 01:28:19,628 --> 01:28:22,765 would probably lead to a, to some type of mistrial 1780 01:28:22,931 --> 01:28:25,568 or probably lead to something bad for him, 1781 01:28:25,734 --> 01:28:29,472 because he just accused me of something publicly that I wasn't even in there for. 1782 01:28:29,638 --> 01:28:32,675 You could feel inside of that courtroom 1783 01:28:32,875 --> 01:28:35,511 the level of tension was unbelievable. 1784 01:28:35,711 --> 01:28:37,413 And I'm looking at the lineup of prosecutors 1785 01:28:37,580 --> 01:28:39,181 from the Department of Justice, 1786 01:28:39,382 --> 01:28:40,916 and they were all like white-faced, 1787 01:28:41,083 --> 01:28:44,152 like "Holy crap, what did this judge just do?" 1788 01:28:44,319 --> 01:28:45,921 And the judge says, "You know, do we need to talk? 1789 01:28:46,088 --> 01:28:47,590 Do we need time to take a break?" 1790 01:28:47,756 --> 01:28:49,492 And I do this-- 1791 01:28:49,658 --> 01:28:50,526 I don't know if you caught that, 1792 01:28:50,726 --> 01:28:52,961 but I did this. 1793 01:28:53,128 --> 01:28:55,598 And my lawyer said, "Yes, Your Honor." 1794 01:28:55,764 --> 01:28:57,332 Prosecution, "Yes, Your Honor. We're okay." 1795 01:28:57,500 --> 01:28:58,467 So, we take a break. 1796 01:28:59,402 --> 01:29:02,137 The judge today really rebukes Michael Flynn 1797 01:29:02,337 --> 01:29:04,106 and uses words like treason, 1798 01:29:04,306 --> 01:29:05,774 that you allegedly sold out your country. 1799 01:29:05,941 --> 01:29:07,810 After the treason comment 1800 01:29:07,976 --> 01:29:09,645 and after the-- thank God they took that break, 1801 01:29:09,812 --> 01:29:13,148 Lori, I think, said, "We gotta take a break here." 1802 01:29:13,315 --> 01:29:15,150 She looked at me and said, 1803 01:29:15,350 --> 01:29:18,220 "This is going off the rails. This is a disaster. 1804 01:29:18,421 --> 01:29:20,989 He's gonna put him in jail today." 1805 01:29:21,156 --> 01:29:23,492 I get back into the courtroom 1806 01:29:23,659 --> 01:29:28,497 and the judge knew that he, he was wrong. 1807 01:29:28,664 --> 01:29:30,666 And he came back out and he essentially, 1808 01:29:30,833 --> 01:29:33,335 in a shitty way, he apologized. 1809 01:29:33,502 --> 01:29:36,572 He gave a shitty apology. But the damage was done. 1810 01:29:36,772 --> 01:29:39,475 Threatening jail time for lying to the FBI. 1811 01:29:39,675 --> 01:29:41,810 But I-- but I want to read you some more of this judge. 1812 01:29:42,010 --> 01:29:44,913 This judge has become a fascinating new figure in this drama. 1813 01:29:45,113 --> 01:29:48,584 And he says, "Okay, we'll come back in like 90 days" or something. 1814 01:29:48,784 --> 01:29:51,153 "We will-- we'll revisit in 90 days." 1815 01:29:52,988 --> 01:29:58,360 And, you know, pounds his gavel and, 1816 01:29:58,527 --> 01:30:01,063 and we all get up, he walks out. 1817 01:30:01,229 --> 01:30:06,268 And I mean, it was, it was like total chaos. 1818 01:30:06,469 --> 01:30:09,872 By the grace of God, Sullivan let him walk out 1819 01:30:10,038 --> 01:30:12,441 of that courtroom without going to prison. 1820 01:30:12,641 --> 01:30:17,212 I think he probably regrets; I think Sullivan regrets that decision to this day. 1821 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. 1822 01:30:21,183 --> 01:30:22,751 The baby's running around. 1823 01:30:22,918 --> 01:30:25,554 The baby, he's like, crawling around. 1824 01:30:29,558 --> 01:30:32,060 We don't know that they had threatened Mike. 1825 01:30:32,227 --> 01:30:36,632 I must have walked around DC after that, 1826 01:30:36,832 --> 01:30:39,735 after that hearing, for a good six, seven hours, 1827 01:30:39,902 --> 01:30:41,236 just walking around, just looking at the sky, 1828 01:30:41,403 --> 01:30:43,405 like crying my eyes out. 1829 01:30:43,572 --> 01:30:46,642 There's-- there's no resolution, you're two years into this now. 1830 01:30:46,842 --> 01:30:51,480 Okay. And you have no idea how much longer this-- this is going to take. 1831 01:30:51,680 --> 01:30:57,452 I'm battling with terrible PTSD, terrible PTSD from-- from this experience. 1832 01:30:57,620 --> 01:31:00,756 You know, I just, I describe it as this constant drumbeat of, 1833 01:31:00,923 --> 01:31:04,059 of dot, you know, of subpoenas, search warrants, you know, 1834 01:31:04,226 --> 01:31:07,963 emails, email requests for information, 1835 01:31:08,130 --> 01:31:11,466 eventual media, you know, parked outside of my house. 1836 01:31:15,571 --> 01:31:19,174 And I want to talk about that "being alone" feeling. 1837 01:31:19,374 --> 01:31:21,309 There are very few things that are worse than feeling alone 1838 01:31:21,476 --> 01:31:25,080 when you're going through like incredible, incredible trauma. 1839 01:31:27,115 --> 01:31:27,916 Um... 1840 01:31:29,918 --> 01:31:31,253 There was just so much that was happening, 1841 01:31:31,419 --> 01:31:34,022 so much that was happening that I... 1842 01:31:34,222 --> 01:31:36,759 I didn't understand at the time, you know? 1843 01:31:36,925 --> 01:31:38,493 I didn't understand, I mean, I didn't really understand 1844 01:31:38,661 --> 01:31:40,796 the concept of the deep state, you know? 1845 01:31:40,963 --> 01:31:42,965 I didn't understand, you know, that the Department of Justice 1846 01:31:43,131 --> 01:31:45,267 can indict a ham sandwich concept. 1847 01:31:45,433 --> 01:31:47,536 You know, like I just, all of a sudden, I'm-- 1848 01:31:47,736 --> 01:31:50,038 I'm hearing that my father could potentially 1849 01:31:50,238 --> 01:31:52,608 go away to prison for 15 years. 1850 01:31:52,775 --> 01:31:55,711 I remember the conversations that I had with my mom about... 1851 01:31:58,013 --> 01:31:59,147 [exhales] 1852 01:32:01,183 --> 01:32:02,785 just about like, 1853 01:32:02,951 --> 01:32:05,654 "Which prison are we gonna go visit him at?" 1854 01:32:05,821 --> 01:32:08,323 I can't even imagine like, what my mom, 1855 01:32:08,490 --> 01:32:10,358 what my mom was thinking about. 1856 01:32:10,525 --> 01:32:13,295 It's been really hard on him, I think, 1857 01:32:13,461 --> 01:32:15,731 harder on him, I think, than on me, truthfully. 1858 01:32:15,931 --> 01:32:19,735 Because imagine having a son feel like 1859 01:32:19,935 --> 01:32:21,804 he is the reason your father had to plead guilty 1860 01:32:21,970 --> 01:32:24,539 to a crime he didn't commit. 1861 01:32:24,707 --> 01:32:28,343 I can't imagine the burden that he had, I mean, the guilt. 1862 01:32:28,510 --> 01:32:30,145 And it's almost like survivor's guilt, really. 1863 01:32:30,312 --> 01:32:32,581 He just felt like, you know, 1864 01:32:32,781 --> 01:32:35,250 his dad was willing to go to prison for him. 1865 01:32:35,450 --> 01:32:38,020 You know, I mean, I didn't believe it. I just didn't believe it. 1866 01:32:38,186 --> 01:32:39,855 It took me years to understand, like, 1867 01:32:40,022 --> 01:32:43,859 oh, he was doing this to, to basically save, to save me. 1868 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. 1869 01:32:46,995 --> 01:32:50,565 He would have kept-- he would have kept fighting, but it's like, I understand. 1870 01:32:50,733 --> 01:32:52,200 I understand, like... 1871 01:32:55,704 --> 01:32:58,373 I understand as a father, you know, like, 1872 01:32:58,540 --> 01:33:00,943 what you would do. 1873 01:33:01,143 --> 01:33:03,111 You know, you'd fall, you'd fall on a sword 1874 01:33:03,311 --> 01:33:07,683 to protect your child, you know, and I understand that. 1875 01:33:07,850 --> 01:33:11,687 I understand that more now than ever. 1876 01:33:11,854 --> 01:33:14,122 Anytime I wanted to talk to my father about this stuff, 1877 01:33:14,322 --> 01:33:16,091 it-- it just it-- 1878 01:33:16,258 --> 01:33:18,961 the conversation always turned into "Talk to your lawyer. 1879 01:33:19,161 --> 01:33:21,730 Talk to your lawyer. Talk to your lawyer." 1880 01:33:21,897 --> 01:33:24,867 We subsequently, subsequently had to talk 1881 01:33:25,067 --> 01:33:27,469 to each other through our lawyers. 1882 01:33:27,670 --> 01:33:29,204 It was after that, I mean, I went into, 1883 01:33:29,404 --> 01:33:32,474 I mean, I went into a very deep depression, 1884 01:33:33,075 --> 01:33:35,811 very deep depression going into 2018. 1885 01:33:36,011 --> 01:33:38,747 I mean, like suicidal depression. 1886 01:33:38,914 --> 01:33:40,649 Okay, and I don't say that lightly 1887 01:33:40,849 --> 01:33:43,986 because that is just not a topic that is, is easy to discuss. 1888 01:33:45,921 --> 01:33:48,724 But, you know, the only thing, 1889 01:33:48,891 --> 01:33:50,558 the only thing that kept me from... 1890 01:33:53,028 --> 01:33:55,731 [sniffles] 1891 01:33:55,898 --> 01:34:00,235 the only thing that kept me alive was my-- was my son. [sniffles] 1892 01:34:00,402 --> 01:34:04,673 And thank God, thank God I have him in my life. 1893 01:34:04,873 --> 01:34:06,474 Thank God I had him in my life then. [sniffles] 1894 01:34:06,641 --> 01:34:11,980 ...to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, 1895 01:34:12,147 --> 01:34:18,453 one nation under God, indivisible, 1896 01:34:18,620 --> 01:34:21,656 with liberty and justice for all. 1897 01:34:27,229 --> 01:34:29,698 Travis was a super important part of my life. 1898 01:34:29,898 --> 01:34:33,368 I mean, and... yeah. 1899 01:34:37,973 --> 01:34:40,108 Little peanut just turned six. 1900 01:34:42,510 --> 01:34:45,047 But anyway. When he, you know, it's like... 1901 01:34:48,083 --> 01:34:50,719 I mean, during this time he's born, right, 1902 01:34:50,919 --> 01:34:54,656 I mean, he's a big baby. And he like, poof, he like, 1903 01:34:54,823 --> 01:34:56,458 I would hold him, 1904 01:34:56,624 --> 01:35:00,896 and his innocence reminded me about 1905 01:35:01,096 --> 01:35:03,365 just everything that was good in life. 1906 01:35:03,531 --> 01:35:06,835 Everything. I mean, the innocence of a child, 1907 01:35:07,002 --> 01:35:09,471 the innocence of my grandchild 1908 01:35:10,105 --> 01:35:17,079 just reminded me of how... how important, you know, 1909 01:35:17,679 --> 01:35:20,582 what it is that we do on a daily basis is. 1910 01:35:20,783 --> 01:35:23,018 And one of the ways that you live your faith, 1911 01:35:23,218 --> 01:35:24,920 and I like to believe that that's the way 1912 01:35:25,120 --> 01:35:26,955 I live my faith, is through my family... 1913 01:35:27,155 --> 01:35:29,591 because I love my family. 1914 01:35:29,792 --> 01:35:32,961 And, and I'd do anything for 'em. 1915 01:35:33,161 --> 01:35:37,532 And I want my family to know that... 1916 01:35:37,699 --> 01:35:39,501 to know that. I want my family to know that, 1917 01:35:39,667 --> 01:35:41,069 that I would do anything for 'em. 1918 01:35:41,236 --> 01:35:43,538 And definitely my own kids. 1919 01:35:43,705 --> 01:35:47,342 And I think with, with Michael, he feels the same way. 1920 01:35:47,509 --> 01:35:50,846 The, you know, Michael looking at Travis... 1921 01:35:54,549 --> 01:35:57,552 and, and thinking about what he was thinking about, 1922 01:35:57,719 --> 01:36:03,758 going through that emotion of, of, of the, of the idea 1923 01:36:03,926 --> 01:36:07,930 that, you know, he's contemplating killing himself. 1924 01:36:08,096 --> 01:36:10,132 He's contemplating suicide. 1925 01:36:11,066 --> 01:36:14,036 I always said, "Michael, just know that no matter what happens, 1926 01:36:14,202 --> 01:36:16,438 you know, your dad and I are here. 1927 01:36:16,604 --> 01:36:21,910 Nothing should get as low for you as that." 1928 01:36:22,077 --> 01:36:25,080 So, and he promised me, 1929 01:36:25,280 --> 01:36:27,482 "Mom, I would never because I have Travis." 1930 01:36:27,682 --> 01:36:30,585 And I said "That's right. You have Travis, and Travis needs you. 1931 01:36:30,785 --> 01:36:34,990 He needs you to be there for him. Like your dad was for you." 1932 01:36:35,190 --> 01:36:41,263 Wow. I mean, you know. 1933 01:36:41,429 --> 01:36:45,934 So, for people... and maybe this is how I, 1934 01:36:46,101 --> 01:36:47,635 you know, how I adjust myself, 1935 01:36:47,802 --> 01:36:49,637 for people, people need to understand that, 1936 01:36:49,804 --> 01:36:56,244 that, that life is so fleeting, so fleeting. 1937 01:36:56,411 --> 01:37:00,015 You know, what the, what you-- what you're looking for, 1938 01:37:00,215 --> 01:37:03,018 is you're looking for love. 1939 01:37:03,218 --> 01:37:07,355 You're looking for like, is, is there love there? 1940 01:37:07,555 --> 01:37:14,496 And I know for me, and I-- and I know for Michael, 1941 01:37:15,463 --> 01:37:18,633 that we found it. We found it. 1942 01:37:18,800 --> 01:37:20,936 We found it in each other. 1943 01:37:21,103 --> 01:37:23,638 We found it in our families and-- 1944 01:37:23,805 --> 01:37:26,608 and I found it in my son, 1945 01:37:26,808 --> 01:37:29,811 and he found it in his son, my grandson. 1946 01:37:30,745 --> 01:37:33,115 And I thank God that he did. 1947 01:37:33,281 --> 01:37:37,485 Because I don't know where I'd be today if, 1948 01:37:37,652 --> 01:37:42,024 uh, if that-- if that had ever happened. 1949 01:37:42,624 --> 01:37:45,227 And I don't know what-- what I would have done. 1950 01:37:47,129 --> 01:37:50,132 That's-- that's just something that's, 1951 01:37:50,298 --> 01:37:53,068 I can't even contemplate it. 1952 01:37:53,268 --> 01:37:55,070 Can't-- that's just unimaginable to me. 1953 01:38:09,952 --> 01:38:12,420 [man] That's why one of the most important things 1954 01:38:12,620 --> 01:38:16,291 that General Flynn did is fired Covington & Burling and hired Sidney Powell, 1955 01:38:16,491 --> 01:38:18,526 somebody who had the courage to go toe to toe with them. 1956 01:38:18,726 --> 01:38:20,728 [Flynn] Lori and I were going through 1957 01:38:20,895 --> 01:38:23,231 our own sort of mental gymnastics to figure out a way to dump them 1958 01:38:23,398 --> 01:38:27,902 and find, find somebody who was going to stand up courageously 1959 01:38:28,070 --> 01:38:30,272 and fight for us. 1960 01:38:30,472 --> 01:38:33,942 Mike gave his consent as a client 1961 01:38:34,142 --> 01:38:38,180 to allow Sidney to read through all of the documents. 1962 01:38:38,346 --> 01:38:41,716 And so, she started uncovering the fact 1963 01:38:41,883 --> 01:38:46,754 that Covington Burling had a conflict of interest 1964 01:38:46,921 --> 01:38:50,525 representing Mike on this 1001 charge. 1965 01:38:50,692 --> 01:38:53,261 They were not in a position where they should be involved 1966 01:38:54,229 --> 01:38:55,363 in the matter before Judge Sullivan. 1967 01:38:55,530 --> 01:38:58,933 My first task was to 1968 01:38:59,101 --> 01:39:01,970 help with the transition of the case 1969 01:39:02,170 --> 01:39:06,541 from Covington & Burling to Sidney Powell as lead counsel. 1970 01:39:06,741 --> 01:39:10,145 There was a striking difference at that point 1971 01:39:10,345 --> 01:39:12,514 about the way that we were defending our client, 1972 01:39:12,714 --> 01:39:15,317 and his predecessors were defending him. 1973 01:39:15,517 --> 01:39:18,420 We're not going to let the government bully us 1974 01:39:18,586 --> 01:39:22,957 into having our client provide false testimony. 1975 01:39:23,125 --> 01:39:25,960 And that was my first real involvement in the case, 1976 01:39:26,128 --> 01:39:31,399 is to-- is to go forward and dig our heels in and say, 1977 01:39:31,566 --> 01:39:34,569 "We're here to defend the truth, 1978 01:39:34,736 --> 01:39:37,072 not the government's false narrative." 1979 01:39:37,239 --> 01:39:39,574 The decision then was not to get this judge 1980 01:39:39,741 --> 01:39:41,843 to lessen my sentence; the fight now was going to be 1981 01:39:42,044 --> 01:39:45,947 we're going to pull my guilty plea. 1982 01:39:46,114 --> 01:39:48,283 Particularly in this case, 1983 01:39:48,450 --> 01:39:52,687 the amount of exculpatory information that was coming in. 1984 01:39:52,887 --> 01:39:54,356 [Alicia] Yeah. 1985 01:39:54,556 --> 01:39:59,861 I mean, I saw all of it. I was stunned with it all. 1986 01:40:00,062 --> 01:40:02,397 I mean, it went on and on and on. 1987 01:40:02,597 --> 01:40:05,800 And you could see through 1988 01:40:05,967 --> 01:40:09,537 the time period of Michael's case 1989 01:40:09,737 --> 01:40:12,707 and his dealings with the attorneys, 1990 01:40:12,907 --> 01:40:16,344 you could see the case literally unfold 1991 01:40:16,511 --> 01:40:19,047 as new information came out. 1992 01:40:19,247 --> 01:40:22,784 Brady material, exculpatory evidence. 1993 01:40:22,950 --> 01:40:26,054 In the U.S. justice process, it's designed to be 1994 01:40:26,254 --> 01:40:29,657 a full airing of the facts. 1995 01:40:29,824 --> 01:40:32,394 So not only the incriminating evidence, 1996 01:40:32,594 --> 01:40:34,129 but the exculpatory evidence. 1997 01:40:34,296 --> 01:40:36,698 All of this is supposed to come forth 1998 01:40:36,864 --> 01:40:39,367 into the judicial process, 1999 01:40:39,534 --> 01:40:45,006 so that there is a free and fair airing of the facts. 2000 01:40:45,173 --> 01:40:47,875 Sidney Powell, you know, she was aware 2001 01:40:48,042 --> 01:40:50,545 that the Department of Justice 2002 01:40:50,712 --> 01:40:53,415 was not bringing forth the Brady material, 2003 01:40:53,615 --> 01:40:56,351 the exculpatory evidence that they were required to do. 2004 01:40:56,518 --> 01:41:00,322 And it begs the question, what have they not done? 2005 01:41:00,488 --> 01:41:03,024 You know, it's like, could it be any more abusive? 2006 01:41:03,691 --> 01:41:06,728 The Department of Justice Inspector General's report 2007 01:41:06,894 --> 01:41:09,731 on FISA abuse came out like a couple of days 2008 01:41:09,897 --> 01:41:12,400 after that 18th December hearing. 2009 01:41:12,567 --> 01:41:18,273 My briefing and debriefing of DIA from my Russia trip came out after that. 2010 01:41:18,473 --> 01:41:21,109 I knew about the briefing and debriefing. 2011 01:41:21,309 --> 01:41:24,679 It was all classified. So, I'm not, you know, I'm not-- 2012 01:41:24,846 --> 01:41:27,249 you know, I'm like, protected. I let my lawyers know, because 2013 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. 2014 01:41:29,851 --> 01:41:31,719 But now it's public. 2015 01:41:31,919 --> 01:41:33,521 [Michael Jr.] There were more and more, you know, 2016 01:41:33,721 --> 01:41:35,390 answers to questions that I had that-- 2017 01:41:35,590 --> 01:41:37,892 that started to get kind of produced 2018 01:41:38,092 --> 01:41:41,696 as Sidney started digging into-- into my father's case. 2019 01:41:41,896 --> 01:41:44,199 You know, like, for example, 2020 01:41:44,399 --> 01:41:46,334 like the reaction of the lawyers from Covington & Burling, 2021 01:41:46,534 --> 01:41:49,471 after my father pled guilty. 2022 01:41:49,671 --> 01:41:51,739 I mean, they were like, celebrating. 2023 01:41:51,939 --> 01:41:55,243 There's texts of them talking about-- and emails talking about 2024 01:41:55,410 --> 01:41:57,379 how, like how great of a job they all did, 2025 01:41:57,545 --> 01:41:59,581 that they were able to get him to plea. 2026 01:41:59,747 --> 01:42:01,949 You know, it's like you get one more shot 2027 01:42:02,116 --> 01:42:05,587 at staying above water. 2028 01:42:05,753 --> 01:42:07,722 Sidney convinced him, not only can we stay above water, 2029 01:42:07,889 --> 01:42:10,458 we can start floating, and maybe we can get out of this. 2030 01:42:10,625 --> 01:42:12,494 This is a lawless process. 2031 01:42:28,376 --> 01:42:31,112 [Joe] The bills were mounting, okay, because it was-- 2032 01:42:31,313 --> 01:42:32,780 and a Special Counsel had been appointed, 2033 01:42:32,980 --> 01:42:35,183 and so Mike's now getting called in. 2034 01:42:35,383 --> 01:42:37,952 So, every time you get called in for a proffer session 2035 01:42:38,119 --> 01:42:39,821 or whatever sessions you have to have with the Special Counsel, 2036 01:42:39,987 --> 01:42:41,823 you're gonna have at least one attorney, 2037 01:42:41,989 --> 01:42:44,926 if not several attorneys available to you. 2038 01:42:45,092 --> 01:42:46,928 So, you're talking about Washington, DC, attorneys-- 2039 01:42:47,094 --> 01:42:50,232 700 dollars. All of a sudden, you know, 2040 01:42:50,432 --> 01:42:52,600 you go from having a 20,000-dollar bill 2041 01:42:52,800 --> 01:42:56,037 to a, you know, 350,000-dollar bill 2042 01:42:56,238 --> 01:42:59,807 and, and I think Mike and Lori knew that, you know, 2043 01:42:59,974 --> 01:43:01,843 if this continues, they're gonna be bankrupt. 2044 01:43:02,009 --> 01:43:03,845 They're gonna just destroy them financially. 2045 01:43:04,011 --> 01:43:07,282 [waves crashing] 2046 01:43:07,482 --> 01:43:09,251 [Barbara] They weren't gonna get much money 2047 01:43:09,451 --> 01:43:11,152 because Mike had already-- selling his house 2048 01:43:11,353 --> 01:43:13,721 to pay the legal fees and, you know, for that, 2049 01:43:13,921 --> 01:43:16,658 first, you know, probably five or six months, 2050 01:43:16,858 --> 01:43:19,126 we're talking 300,000 dollars a month. 2051 01:43:19,294 --> 01:43:20,528 And they don't care. 2052 01:43:20,695 --> 01:43:22,397 They just keep sending you a bill. 2053 01:43:22,597 --> 01:43:24,366 They don't even care if they send you an invoice. 2054 01:43:25,032 --> 01:43:26,133 [Flynn] So, there was a moment that 2055 01:43:26,334 --> 01:43:28,135 where I just felt like 2056 01:43:28,336 --> 01:43:31,072 I was literally deep down underwater, 2057 01:43:31,273 --> 01:43:32,139 and I felt like I was drowning. 2058 01:43:34,509 --> 01:43:37,245 [Jack] It was an insurmountable, monumental task 2059 01:43:37,445 --> 01:43:42,350 to raise that money in the face of having had Mike plead guilty. 2060 01:43:44,719 --> 01:43:47,489 And the rest of the country going, 2061 01:43:47,655 --> 01:43:50,157 "What the fuck? How did he plead? Why?" 2062 01:43:50,325 --> 01:43:52,427 His son. 2063 01:43:52,627 --> 01:43:56,831 Young Mike. All right? So, everybody gets it. 2064 01:43:56,998 --> 01:43:59,233 But the media doesn't want to carry that message. 2065 01:43:59,401 --> 01:44:01,603 Instead, it's "disgraced General Michael Flynn." 2066 01:44:01,803 --> 01:44:03,838 And the more they pushed back on Trump, 2067 01:44:04,005 --> 01:44:05,607 the more people started to realize 2068 01:44:05,807 --> 01:44:08,009 General Flynn took a hit. 2069 01:44:08,576 --> 01:44:12,747 We ended up having to, um, start a legal defense fund. 2070 01:44:12,914 --> 01:44:15,917 And, um... 2071 01:44:16,083 --> 01:44:18,786 that in itself was hard because, you know, 2072 01:44:18,986 --> 01:44:20,021 you're asking people to give you money 2073 01:44:20,187 --> 01:44:22,056 to defend yourself. 2074 01:44:22,223 --> 01:44:27,295 And we, we were asking the American people to help us. 2075 01:44:27,495 --> 01:44:30,332 And they came out in droves. 2076 01:44:30,532 --> 01:44:32,500 [Flynn] The American people started to come into, 2077 01:44:32,700 --> 01:44:34,502 into my life. 2078 01:44:34,702 --> 01:44:37,705 And, and there was a moment where I just felt like 2079 01:44:37,905 --> 01:44:42,377 air was being breathed into my lungs. 2080 01:44:42,544 --> 01:44:45,647 Over time, instead of being pounded down 2081 01:44:45,847 --> 01:44:49,016 below the surface of the ocean, I started to come up. 2082 01:44:49,216 --> 01:44:51,853 I started to come up. 2083 01:44:52,053 --> 01:44:55,523 In a way, it was like, I'm now above the surface, 2084 01:44:55,723 --> 01:44:58,025 and I'm starting to swim to shore. 2085 01:44:58,225 --> 01:45:01,128 I'm really just-- now I'm like, "Okay, I got this. 2086 01:45:01,295 --> 01:45:02,897 Shore's still a long distance off, 2087 01:45:03,064 --> 01:45:05,800 but I can see, I can see the shoreline. 2088 01:45:05,967 --> 01:45:08,736 It's out there." 2089 01:45:08,903 --> 01:45:09,737 And I started to swim for it. 2090 01:45:14,976 --> 01:45:16,944 [Jack] And these supportive people, 2091 01:45:17,111 --> 01:45:20,482 God knows where they came from, these American people. 2092 01:45:20,648 --> 01:45:24,419 He calls it buddy breathing. I've heard him say that. 2093 01:45:24,586 --> 01:45:30,091 Being able to come through financially, 2094 01:45:30,257 --> 01:45:31,859 with this giant burden of the federal government 2095 01:45:32,059 --> 01:45:33,127 on his shoulders, 2096 01:45:33,294 --> 01:45:35,530 and be able to support, 2097 01:45:35,730 --> 01:45:39,834 you know, the legal action that was 2098 01:45:40,001 --> 01:45:43,871 incredibly financially burdensome to any other person. 2099 01:45:44,071 --> 01:45:47,609 I don't know what you would do, except end up in jail. 2100 01:45:47,775 --> 01:45:51,178 We had to outsmart the FBI, the CIA, the DOJ. 2101 01:45:51,345 --> 01:45:52,780 We had to become our own-- 2102 01:45:52,947 --> 01:45:55,717 the Flynn family became investigators. 2103 01:45:55,917 --> 01:45:59,186 We had to read every document, and we had to look deeper, 2104 01:45:59,353 --> 01:46:02,156 and we had so many great people started helping us. 2105 01:46:02,323 --> 01:46:04,158 Once they saw that we weren't going to stop, 2106 01:46:04,325 --> 01:46:05,493 that we were going to fight, 2107 01:46:05,693 --> 01:46:06,994 we were getting letters, 2108 01:46:07,194 --> 01:46:10,398 like hundreds of letters every week. 2109 01:46:10,598 --> 01:46:12,500 Just when we were getting like to a low, 2110 01:46:12,667 --> 01:46:14,902 Barbara would, there would be a FedEx box 2111 01:46:15,102 --> 01:46:18,339 coming to the door with like, hundreds of letters, 2112 01:46:18,506 --> 01:46:22,009 hundreds of cards, rosary beads; you know, 2113 01:46:22,176 --> 01:46:23,310 little things to just make our life 2114 01:46:24,211 --> 01:46:26,347 a little bit more pleasant. 2115 01:46:26,548 --> 01:46:28,650 We would take them out and read them, 2116 01:46:28,850 --> 01:46:30,017 and we would say, "This is what it's all about. 2117 01:46:30,217 --> 01:46:31,953 This is what real America is." 2118 01:46:32,153 --> 01:46:35,156 These people are, you know, 2119 01:46:35,322 --> 01:46:37,692 talking about things that happened to them with their families, you know, 2120 01:46:37,859 --> 01:46:39,226 my husband, or my son or my brother, my-- 2121 01:46:39,393 --> 01:46:41,362 this happened to them when they did this. 2122 01:46:41,529 --> 01:46:43,364 And it was really cathartic to read all those letters. 2123 01:46:43,531 --> 01:46:45,199 It was a great thing to look forward to. 2124 01:46:45,366 --> 01:46:47,802 Like every other week, we would get a big box. 2125 01:46:48,002 --> 01:46:50,505 And we amassed probably 2126 01:46:50,705 --> 01:46:53,374 seven or eight big Rubbermaid bins of them, 2127 01:46:53,575 --> 01:46:57,945 and Mike would sit down after every box we got and wrote a thank-you note 2128 01:46:58,145 --> 01:46:59,280 to every single one of those people. 2129 01:46:59,481 --> 01:47:01,949 And some of them became pen pals. 2130 01:47:02,149 --> 01:47:04,251 They would write him back, and he would have to write them back. 2131 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, 2132 01:47:10,257 --> 01:47:12,059 way to get through it too, you know? 2133 01:47:12,226 --> 01:47:13,961 He would read something, and he'd say, 2134 01:47:14,161 --> 01:47:15,863 "You got to read this letter," and-- 2135 01:47:16,063 --> 01:47:17,532 or I'd read it and, "You got to read this letter." 2136 01:47:17,732 --> 01:47:19,333 And they were just great, great letters. 2137 01:47:19,534 --> 01:47:22,403 Tearjerkers, a lot of them. But it was-- 2138 01:47:22,604 --> 01:47:25,540 it really did open our eyes to what America 2139 01:47:25,707 --> 01:47:27,642 really knows about what's going on with his case, 2140 01:47:27,842 --> 01:47:30,044 because they came from everywhere. 2141 01:47:30,211 --> 01:47:34,115 Some of them overseas, you know, so it was, um, 2142 01:47:34,281 --> 01:47:36,651 it got us through a lot of the tough, tough times. 2143 01:47:36,851 --> 01:47:38,720 It really did. 2144 01:47:38,886 --> 01:47:40,622 [producer] Is it true he went to the 99 cents store he loves? 2145 01:47:40,788 --> 01:47:41,789 [laughs] 2146 01:47:41,956 --> 01:47:43,725 [producer] Tell me about that. 2147 01:47:43,891 --> 01:47:45,059 Well, it's not 99 cents store anymore. 2148 01:47:45,226 --> 01:47:47,729 Now it's $1.25. 2149 01:47:47,895 --> 01:47:49,597 But yes, we would go in there, 2150 01:47:49,764 --> 01:47:51,733 he would get this like cards for a dollar, 2151 01:47:51,899 --> 01:47:53,601 and you could get like a pack of eight 2152 01:47:53,768 --> 01:47:55,803 or a pack of 12 for a buck. So why not? 2153 01:47:55,970 --> 01:47:58,072 We just put about as many as we could in the cart. 2154 01:47:58,239 --> 01:48:00,842 You know, we always got the ones that had the American flag on them. 2155 01:48:01,042 --> 01:48:02,744 But he'd go through them so fast. 2156 01:48:02,910 --> 01:48:04,478 I ended up having to order them from somewhere else 2157 01:48:04,646 --> 01:48:06,347 so we can get like a pack of 50. 2158 01:48:06,548 --> 01:48:08,750 I think it says a lot about what the American people 2159 01:48:08,916 --> 01:48:11,352 were wanting out of this. 2160 01:48:11,553 --> 01:48:14,589 They were looking at this as, as this is their fight. 2161 01:48:14,789 --> 01:48:17,258 What Flynn's going through, what the Flynn family's going through 2162 01:48:17,458 --> 01:48:19,727 is the fight of the common American people 2163 01:48:19,927 --> 01:48:23,130 against a broken, corrupt justice system. 2164 01:48:23,330 --> 01:48:26,133 Many families have dealt with broken, corrupt 2165 01:48:26,333 --> 01:48:28,670 justice system situations. 2166 01:48:28,836 --> 01:48:31,773 And many people empathized with that and saw-- 2167 01:48:31,939 --> 01:48:33,541 they realized that we weren't some wealthy family, 2168 01:48:33,741 --> 01:48:35,176 West Point grads. 2169 01:48:35,342 --> 01:48:37,178 We were a bunch of street kids, okay, 2170 01:48:37,344 --> 01:48:39,547 and just happened to be in this situation 2171 01:48:39,747 --> 01:48:42,183 and having to band together to fight against this, 2172 01:48:42,349 --> 01:48:43,718 to fight against this absolute evil. 2173 01:48:48,690 --> 01:48:50,257 [Jesse] First of all, you got to understand 2174 01:48:50,457 --> 01:48:51,659 a little bit about who Jeff Jensen is. 2175 01:48:51,859 --> 01:48:53,327 He's a former FBI agent, 2176 01:48:53,527 --> 01:48:56,297 who then became a line prosecutor, 2177 01:48:56,497 --> 01:49:00,968 who then became a United States attorney. 2178 01:49:01,168 --> 01:49:04,672 So, he's somebody who fully understood 2179 01:49:04,839 --> 01:49:07,809 the workings of the FBI 2180 01:49:07,975 --> 01:49:12,179 and the workings of the Department of Justice. 2181 01:49:12,346 --> 01:49:16,684 So, he's not someone that the bureaucrats 2182 01:49:16,884 --> 01:49:20,321 could hide stuff from using their bureaucratic tricks. 2183 01:49:22,857 --> 01:49:23,925 And the most important... 2184 01:49:26,193 --> 01:49:32,066 document that was written as a result of his investigation 2185 01:49:32,700 --> 01:49:36,804 was on May 7, 2020, 2186 01:49:37,004 --> 01:49:40,174 when the government moved to dismiss the Flynn case. 2187 01:49:46,147 --> 01:49:48,950 [Lee] Nah, nah, nah. Not so quick. 2188 01:49:49,150 --> 01:49:51,653 Time for Emmet Sullivan to go after Flynn. 2189 01:49:51,853 --> 01:49:55,690 Even if the prosecutors have stopped prosecuting Flynn, 2190 01:49:55,857 --> 01:50:00,628 it's time for now the judge to prosecute General Michael Flynn. 2191 01:50:00,828 --> 01:50:03,397 That's really weird. That's really twisted. 2192 01:50:03,564 --> 01:50:05,132 There was no reason for them to do what they did 2193 01:50:05,332 --> 01:50:08,936 in the first place. It was political. 2194 01:50:09,103 --> 01:50:14,008 It was a hit job by the former Obama administration 2195 01:50:14,208 --> 01:50:18,880 on the incoming administration, and he targeted Flynn 2196 01:50:19,080 --> 01:50:20,815 because they felt that that was going to be a spot, 2197 01:50:21,015 --> 01:50:23,384 especially with Russia, because he had, 2198 01:50:23,584 --> 01:50:24,919 he sat at that table with Putin one time, 2199 01:50:25,119 --> 01:50:27,889 which is in our family a joke. 2200 01:50:28,055 --> 01:50:29,957 Michael, if he was told to shoot Putin 2201 01:50:30,124 --> 01:50:33,227 in the head that day, would have done it. 2202 01:50:33,394 --> 01:50:37,732 Because he's a soldier, always first. 2203 01:50:37,899 --> 01:50:40,434 If his job was to get there and shoot Putin in the head, 2204 01:50:40,601 --> 01:50:41,769 he'd've done it. 2205 01:50:44,405 --> 01:50:47,108 There's something else that's part of the story 2206 01:50:47,274 --> 01:50:53,247 that I don't know has been told that I think needs to be told. 2207 01:50:53,414 --> 01:50:59,987 And that is, President Trump offered a pardon 2208 01:51:00,154 --> 01:51:04,158 in the spring of 2020, before the government's motion to dismiss, 2209 01:51:04,325 --> 01:51:10,932 and actually before most of the exculpatory information had come out. 2210 01:51:11,098 --> 01:51:13,701 General Flynn had an opportunity then 2211 01:51:13,901 --> 01:51:17,638 to put all this behind him. But he didn't want the pardon. 2212 01:51:17,805 --> 01:51:20,141 He wanted to be fully vindicated 2213 01:51:20,307 --> 01:51:22,076 through the government's motion to dismiss. 2214 01:51:22,276 --> 01:51:29,283 And Sidney had the guts to tell the president, 2215 01:51:30,617 --> 01:51:32,253 "Thank you very much, but this time, 2216 01:51:32,453 --> 01:51:37,358 we're gonna keep fighting." As a result of, of that, 2217 01:51:37,524 --> 01:51:44,531 the full exposure of the government's misconduct 2218 01:51:45,099 --> 01:51:47,301 against General Flynn came to light. 2219 01:51:47,468 --> 01:51:53,340 But everything that came out probably wouldn't have unless 2220 01:51:53,507 --> 01:51:58,079 General Flynn had the courage to say, 2221 01:51:58,279 --> 01:52:01,148 "I don't want a pardon yet, I want to fight." 2222 01:52:01,315 --> 01:52:02,850 I'm really proud to be on a legal team 2223 01:52:03,017 --> 01:52:05,052 that supported him in that. 2224 01:52:05,219 --> 01:52:06,553 [producer] Had anybody heard that? 2225 01:52:06,720 --> 01:52:07,521 I don't think so. 2226 01:52:10,792 --> 01:52:13,828 I had to get permission from the client to tell it. 2227 01:52:13,995 --> 01:52:17,264 We were praying to God that we didn't have to use a pardon. 2228 01:52:17,464 --> 01:52:22,269 But I knew that Sullivan was waiting 2229 01:52:22,469 --> 01:52:24,505 for the election to come, and if Biden had won, 2230 01:52:24,671 --> 01:52:26,340 which he did, 2231 01:52:26,507 --> 01:52:28,575 and my husband hadn't gotten pardoned from Trump, 2232 01:52:28,742 --> 01:52:31,012 they would have somehow figured out a way 2233 01:52:31,178 --> 01:52:34,748 to rescind any kind of dismissal 2234 01:52:34,916 --> 01:52:37,518 and take him back into court and retry him or whatever. 2235 01:52:37,684 --> 01:52:40,387 I knew that was what his plan was. 2236 01:52:40,554 --> 01:52:43,224 That's how vindictive that judge was. 2237 01:52:43,390 --> 01:52:46,794 And I was grateful, but I was also sad 2238 01:52:46,994 --> 01:52:49,063 because it should have never came to that. 2239 01:52:49,230 --> 01:52:52,566 My husband didn't need a pardon. He didn't do anything wrong. 2240 01:52:52,733 --> 01:52:54,101 And so, the pardon is kind of one of those things 2241 01:52:54,268 --> 01:52:55,469 where it's a little bit bittersweet. 2242 01:53:06,580 --> 01:53:09,416 Okay, inside this little box is a-- 2243 01:53:09,583 --> 01:53:12,153 the original pardon of innocence given to General Michael Flynn 2244 01:53:12,353 --> 01:53:16,824 by Donald Trump in November of 2020. 2245 01:53:17,024 --> 01:53:20,161 Again, an unprecedented event in American history 2246 01:53:20,361 --> 01:53:23,030 where someone has given-- been given a presidential pardon 2247 01:53:23,230 --> 01:53:25,532 who is innocent of the charges 2248 01:53:25,732 --> 01:53:29,103 because the charges were dropped by the Department of Justice. 2249 01:53:29,270 --> 01:53:31,505 So, there was no reason for the pardon anyway. 2250 01:53:31,705 --> 01:53:33,640 And that's why he called it a pardon of innocence 2251 01:53:33,807 --> 01:53:37,411 because he had to pardon an innocent man 2252 01:53:37,578 --> 01:53:41,582 because the system would not let go. 2253 01:53:41,748 --> 01:53:44,018 It's extraordinary... and unprecedented. 2254 01:53:48,055 --> 01:53:51,092 [producer] And your brother has never opened that? 2255 01:53:51,258 --> 01:53:52,193 Apparently not. 2256 01:53:56,597 --> 01:53:59,066 [Flynn] He says, "You know, the only person in-- 2257 01:53:59,266 --> 01:54:02,769 in Washington, DC, who's been screwed worse 2258 01:54:02,937 --> 01:54:05,506 than you is probably me." 2259 01:54:05,672 --> 01:54:07,441 And I said, "No, Mister President, I-- " 2260 01:54:07,608 --> 01:54:09,376 you know, I said, "I'm not so sure that's the case, 2261 01:54:09,576 --> 01:54:10,945 because I've-- you know, sitting here today, 2262 01:54:11,112 --> 01:54:12,679 I feel pretty screwed," you know. 2263 01:54:12,846 --> 01:54:16,383 And we were joking for a minute, banter back and forth, 2264 01:54:16,583 --> 01:54:18,852 and, you know, just about that. 2265 01:54:19,020 --> 01:54:20,687 And he goes, "Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna issue a pardon. 2266 01:54:20,854 --> 01:54:22,189 I just want you to know that, you know, 2267 01:54:22,356 --> 01:54:24,225 this should end anything." 2268 01:54:24,425 --> 01:54:28,329 He goes, he goes, "Now you're the cleanest man in America." 2269 01:54:28,495 --> 01:54:30,697 He goes, "There's nobody cleaner than you after this, 2270 01:54:30,864 --> 01:54:33,901 after this pardon," you know. 2271 01:54:34,101 --> 01:54:41,042 That was November 2020, so, you know, three years plus. 2272 01:54:42,643 --> 01:54:44,912 [producer] Did you harbor some resentment towards Trump? 2273 01:54:45,112 --> 01:54:46,847 Uh, I did. I did it. 2274 01:54:47,014 --> 01:54:50,651 Initially, I did, because he was not kind to me. 2275 01:54:50,817 --> 01:54:52,753 I mean, he said some nasty things about me 2276 01:54:52,954 --> 01:54:55,722 after I left, you know, called me a liar. 2277 01:54:56,690 --> 01:54:59,260 In fairness, because it was something 2278 01:54:59,460 --> 01:55:01,895 that I did see in him, was that he really didn't know, 2279 01:55:02,063 --> 01:55:04,698 he didn't know the ways of Washington, DC. 2280 01:55:04,865 --> 01:55:05,732 He really didn't. 2281 01:55:09,136 --> 01:55:12,139 [Tracy] To this day, nobody has ever gone on record 2282 01:55:12,339 --> 01:55:14,375 and said what the DOJ was going to go 2283 01:55:14,575 --> 01:55:17,844 after Michael Flynn Jr. for. 2284 01:55:18,045 --> 01:55:20,481 I would assume likely the same thing they went 2285 01:55:20,681 --> 01:55:24,318 after the business partners for, FARA violations. 2286 01:55:24,518 --> 01:55:27,888 Just recently, the government has dropped the case 2287 01:55:28,089 --> 01:55:29,556 against General Flynn's business partner 2288 01:55:29,756 --> 01:55:31,525 at the Flynn Intel Group. 2289 01:55:31,725 --> 01:55:35,162 Once the jury in DC came back with a guilty verdict, 2290 01:55:35,362 --> 01:55:37,564 Judge Trenga overturned that verdict 2291 01:55:37,764 --> 01:55:40,067 due to lack of evidence in the case 2292 01:55:40,267 --> 01:55:43,137 because there is none. 2293 01:55:43,337 --> 01:55:46,773 There is no evidence that proves any of the things that the DOJ was advancing. 2294 01:55:48,275 --> 01:55:51,745 [Flynn] Barack Obama, right? 2295 01:55:51,912 --> 01:55:53,147 [Michael Jr.] July 14th, 2296 01:55:53,347 --> 01:55:55,282 They extend-- so that's 2014. 2297 01:55:55,449 --> 01:55:57,784 A year and a half later, these bastards got me under investigation. 2298 01:55:57,951 --> 01:56:00,787 You know, "I extend my sincere thanks," 2299 01:56:00,954 --> 01:56:03,024 - you know? - [chuckles] 2300 01:56:03,224 --> 01:56:05,559 [Tracy] I want more people, even if they don't say, 2301 01:56:05,759 --> 01:56:08,429 "I like that guy. I'm on his team now," 2302 01:56:08,595 --> 01:56:11,165 I want them to, to understand what happened, 2303 01:56:11,365 --> 01:56:13,067 to understand what happened to him, 2304 01:56:13,234 --> 01:56:14,501 and to be able to at least give him 2305 01:56:14,701 --> 01:56:17,304 the respect he deserves, 2306 01:56:17,471 --> 01:56:19,940 even if they don't agree with him. 2307 01:56:20,107 --> 01:56:24,945 That is, is the bare minimum, um, 2308 01:56:25,112 --> 01:56:30,184 and learning from him and his story will go a long way 2309 01:56:30,384 --> 01:56:32,353 to getting through all the other issues 2310 01:56:32,553 --> 01:56:35,589 that we have right now, because it is the light switch. 2311 01:56:35,756 --> 01:56:38,459 If you understand what happened to him, 2312 01:56:38,625 --> 01:56:41,795 you start to peel back the curtain on everything. 2313 01:56:41,962 --> 01:56:44,965 I think the General Flynn story 2314 01:56:45,132 --> 01:56:48,302 is actually the foundational story 2315 01:56:48,469 --> 01:56:52,639 that America needs to understand the truth of 2316 01:56:52,806 --> 01:56:57,211 to be able to understand what has occurred within our government, 2317 01:56:57,411 --> 01:57:00,214 and the mounting corruption since then. 2318 01:57:00,414 --> 01:57:03,050 [Jack] If they can learn something 2319 01:57:03,250 --> 01:57:07,854 from what Michael went through, to believe in this country 2320 01:57:08,021 --> 01:57:12,226 under, under extreme and extraordinary circumstances 2321 01:57:12,426 --> 01:57:14,895 and still come through the other side, 2322 01:57:15,096 --> 01:57:18,865 and not give up on America, that's what they need to learn 2323 01:57:19,032 --> 01:57:24,205 from what this documentary can portray him. 2324 01:57:24,371 --> 01:57:27,374 It is, in fact, the truth. 2325 01:57:27,541 --> 01:57:31,878 He will not stop fighting for this republic. 2326 01:57:32,846 --> 01:57:35,182 For this, what he calls, experiment. 2327 01:57:35,382 --> 01:57:37,118 [Barbara] My mother and father would be so proud 2328 01:57:37,318 --> 01:57:39,820 because he's the only person that could've withstood. 2329 01:57:40,020 --> 01:57:44,191 They knew... they knew that he was the only one. 2330 01:57:44,391 --> 01:57:47,294 He was-- he was meant for this time. 2331 01:57:47,494 --> 01:57:50,631 He's the only person that could've withstood 2332 01:57:50,831 --> 01:57:54,468 this type of, you know, this evil, 2333 01:57:54,668 --> 01:57:57,003 this unfathomable domestic evil 2334 01:57:57,204 --> 01:57:59,540 that we're facing-- and beat it too. 2335 01:57:59,706 --> 01:58:01,675 It-- it's very hard not to get jaded 2336 01:58:01,842 --> 01:58:03,510 and turned off and just say, "I'm just gonna go away." 2337 01:58:03,677 --> 01:58:05,212 Mike Flynn is not going to do that. 2338 01:58:05,379 --> 01:58:07,214 Mike Flynn is, I think people need to understand, 2339 01:58:07,381 --> 01:58:09,283 he's going to be there fighting for them. 2340 01:58:09,483 --> 01:58:11,118 Maybe not as an elected official, 2341 01:58:11,318 --> 01:58:13,354 but certainly as a public person, 2342 01:58:13,520 --> 01:58:17,891 as a, as a, as a veteran, as a father, as a grandfather. 2343 01:58:18,058 --> 01:58:20,294 He's going to be out there swinging at the fences 2344 01:58:20,494 --> 01:58:23,697 to try to bring sanity back to this country. 2345 01:58:23,864 --> 01:58:26,700 Because... we are going off the rails. 2346 01:58:26,867 --> 01:58:28,235 This country is going off the rails 2347 01:58:28,402 --> 01:58:31,305 in many, in many different directions. 2348 01:58:31,505 --> 01:58:34,107 Economically, militarily, and socially, 2349 01:58:34,275 --> 01:58:37,077 we are in a bad place right now, and I think people-- 2350 01:58:37,244 --> 01:58:39,546 people want hope, people need hope, 2351 01:58:39,746 --> 01:58:41,882 and more importantly, people need warriors, 2352 01:58:42,082 --> 01:58:44,951 and I think you're gonna get that from General Flynn. 2353 01:58:45,118 --> 01:58:48,121 Again, the most important stories about this 2354 01:58:48,289 --> 01:58:50,657 are not the stories about the bad things 2355 01:58:50,857 --> 01:58:52,926 that people have done, right, 2356 01:58:53,093 --> 01:58:55,929 about the evil that these people have done, 2357 01:58:56,096 --> 01:58:59,132 the way these people have tried to destroy family-- 2358 01:58:59,300 --> 01:59:02,936 families, and the way that they've corrupted the country. 2359 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. 2360 01:59:06,273 --> 01:59:08,242 I mean, look at all these things. 2361 01:59:08,442 --> 01:59:11,044 I mean, look at how, how it's made them, 2362 01:59:11,245 --> 01:59:14,748 how it's made them brighter, and stronger, right. 2363 01:59:14,948 --> 01:59:18,752 People, I mean, people look to their family, 2364 01:59:18,919 --> 01:59:20,954 look to that family, as an example. 2365 01:59:21,121 --> 01:59:22,523 It's like, "Well, if the Flynns went through this, 2366 01:59:22,723 --> 01:59:24,591 then we can certainly get through it." 2367 01:59:24,791 --> 01:59:27,194 You know, "If, wow, they did that to General Flynn, 2368 01:59:29,663 --> 01:59:32,566 I guess I can get through this." You know, and he's okay. 2369 01:59:32,766 --> 01:59:34,100 He got through it with faith and his family. 2370 01:59:34,301 --> 01:59:36,169 He got through it. 2371 01:59:36,337 --> 01:59:38,372 The Flynns pulled together, 2372 01:59:38,572 --> 01:59:40,807 the American people can pull together. 2373 01:59:40,974 --> 01:59:47,214 Because if we pull together, and we drive this darkness out, 2374 01:59:47,414 --> 01:59:49,450 then we can touch the whole world. 2375 01:59:49,616 --> 01:59:51,385 We can touch the whole world. 2376 01:59:51,585 --> 01:59:53,954 I think that General Flynn's story 2377 01:59:54,120 --> 01:59:57,524 is an inspiring story because he wasn't broken. 2378 01:59:57,691 --> 01:59:59,793 And as he will say readily, he wasn't broken 2379 01:59:59,960 --> 02:00:02,329 because of the love of his family 2380 02:00:02,496 --> 02:00:03,530 and because of his faith. 2381 02:00:05,599 --> 02:00:08,235 General Flynn found himself in a circumstance 2382 02:00:08,435 --> 02:00:10,003 he did not anticipate at all. 2383 02:00:10,170 --> 02:00:12,373 This is not the life he prepared for at all. 2384 02:00:12,539 --> 02:00:14,241 He's not a political figure, he's not even a Republican. 2385 02:00:14,441 --> 02:00:15,709 Not politically active. 2386 02:00:18,144 --> 02:00:21,482 I don't think he ever expected to find himself 2387 02:00:21,648 --> 02:00:24,017 in the fulcrum of history. 2388 02:00:24,184 --> 02:00:25,819 And I know he never expected himself 2389 02:00:25,986 --> 02:00:27,754 to be persecuted by his own government 2390 02:00:27,954 --> 02:00:30,724 that he had served for the course of his entire life. 2391 02:00:30,891 --> 02:00:33,026 But all of that happened, and these things do happen. 2392 02:00:33,193 --> 02:00:37,097 We can't know our future. None of it is known. 2393 02:00:37,298 --> 02:00:39,032 I have some sense of what I'm having for dinner tonight. 2394 02:00:39,199 --> 02:00:42,269 Beyond that, it's opaque. And that's true for all of us. 2395 02:00:42,469 --> 02:00:43,904 And we all could wind up in a situation like that, 2396 02:00:44,070 --> 02:00:45,572 and the only thing that we can hope for 2397 02:00:45,739 --> 02:00:47,341 is the strength to continue to tell the truth 2398 02:00:47,508 --> 02:00:49,042 in the face of adversity, 2399 02:00:49,209 --> 02:00:51,845 and to be surrounded by people we love who support us, 2400 02:00:52,012 --> 02:00:54,415 and to come out on the other end whole. 2401 02:00:54,581 --> 02:00:56,049 And he's achieved all of that. 2402 02:00:56,216 --> 02:00:58,285 And so, I see his story as a great victory, 2403 02:00:58,485 --> 02:00:59,786 actually as a triumph. 2404 02:00:59,986 --> 02:01:01,622 He's still whole. 2405 02:01:01,822 --> 02:01:03,424 He's wounded by what happened to him, 2406 02:01:03,590 --> 02:01:05,392 his family's wounded by what happened to him, 2407 02:01:05,559 --> 02:01:08,362 but he's not broken. He still has dignity. 2408 02:01:08,529 --> 02:01:11,565 And he still has an unwavering commitment to tell the truth. 2409 02:01:11,732 --> 02:01:13,233 You may not agree with him, but he's not lying to you. 2410 02:01:13,400 --> 02:01:15,068 He's saying what he really thinks. 2411 02:01:15,235 --> 02:01:16,870 And if you come out of a situation like the one 2412 02:01:17,037 --> 02:01:20,407 he lived through with that intact, you've won. 2413 02:01:22,042 --> 02:01:23,944 Is there any regrets that you have in life? 2414 02:01:24,110 --> 02:01:26,380 Right? [chuckles] 2415 02:01:26,547 --> 02:01:28,081 And-- and for what I've experienced, 2416 02:01:28,248 --> 02:01:30,250 I-- I should sit here and say, 2417 02:01:30,417 --> 02:01:33,286 "I got a lot of f-- I got a lot of regrets." 2418 02:01:33,454 --> 02:01:37,591 Um, but when I look back on my life, 2419 02:01:37,758 --> 02:01:40,561 and I understand the lives that were lost... 2420 02:01:44,064 --> 02:01:46,833 I mean, I'm sitting here with you, and I'm like-- 2421 02:01:47,033 --> 02:01:48,902 [exhales] Phew! 2422 02:01:49,069 --> 02:01:52,939 I'm like, you know, I'm here, and I can tell my story. 2423 02:01:56,910 --> 02:01:59,680 [uplifting music playing] 2424 02:06:11,531 --> 02:06:14,400 [music fades out]