Thread by @nytimes

In @NYTMag, @draperrobert reports on how Michael Flynn tried to persuade Donald Trump to use the military to overturn the 2020 election. A year later, he and his followers are fighting the same battle by other means. nyti.ms/3L2YicS

Around Thanksgiving in 2020, Flynn flew to South Carolina on the private jet of the former Overstock chief executive Patrick Byrne, to a former plantation owned by Lin Wood, where he threw himself into the project of reversing the election results. nyti.ms/34i331M

Patrick Byrne told @draperrobert that he had rented several rooms at the Trump Hotel for a few months — paying about $800,000 — which he, Flynn, Sidney Powell and other Trump loyalists working to reverse the election results would move in and out of. nyti.ms/34i331M

While Sidney Powell was pursuing legal options for reversing the election results, Flynn was envisioning a military role, calling for sending in the military — a combination of the National Guard and U.S. marshals, he suggested — to the contested states. nyti.ms/34i331M

On Dec. 18, the group handed Trump a packet with previous executive orders that they believed established a precedent for a new one. It would use supposed foreign interference in the election as a reason for deploying the military, @draperrobert reports. nyti.ms/34i331M

White House lawyers present at the meeting vehemently denounced the plan. Trump was amenable to civilian authorities’ seizing voting machines. But either by his own judgment or on the advice of others, he seemed to draw the line at using the military. nyti.ms/34i331M

Flynn then contacted Ezra Cohen, the Defense Department acting under secretary for intelligence, ordering him to direct the military to seize ballots and voting machines and rerun the election. nyti.ms/34i331M

With Flynn’s fleeting window of direct access to the president closed, he urged Devin Nunes to pursue a rumor that the election results had been manipulated by an Italian defense contractor. But a Nunes staff member found the lead to be meritless. nyti.ms/34i331M

In the year since trying to enlist the military to overturn the election, Flynn has continued to fight the same battle by other means. In the post-Trump MAGA world, Flynn is probably the single greatest draw besides Trump himself. nyti.ms/34i331M

How did Michael Flynn go from being a celebrated intelligence officer in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to spreading the gospel of election conspiracism? Read @draperrobert in @NYTMag. nyti.ms/34i331M