Thread by @normative

Apparently Michael Flynn’s derangment is tempered by cowardice: He’s now attempting to retcon his endorsement of a military coup at a QAnon event & pretend he said the opposite of what he is caught on video saying. texasnewstoday.com/michael-flynn-…

He’s now claiming he said “there’s no reason [a coup like in Myanmar] should happen here. Horseshit. Watch the video. Even if hadn’t already previously called for martial law to overturn the election, it’s not ambiguous. At all.

https://twitter.com/mc_hyperbole/status/1399129297240084489

Question: “I wanna know why what happened in Minnamar [sic] can’t happen here?” [HUGE cheers from crowd]

Flynn: “No reason. I mean, it should happen here.” [more cheers from crowd] “No reason. That’s right. One more!”

“One more” there is, fwiw, “one more question” not “one more coup.” But “no reason” is obviously answering “why can’t it happen here?” Instead of apologizing for this vile reply, Flynn adds words he didn’t say to his answer, then blames the media for reporting what he did say.

It would be very marginally less contemptible if he at least owned up to giving the crowd the fascist red meat they so clearly wanted. But he wants to cling whatever last shred of mainstream respectability he imagines he enjoys & also take the applause & cash from QAnon.

Say what you will about the tenets of Soviet Communism, but Kim Philby at least believed in the cause he betrayed his country for. Flynn lacks even the courage of his quisling convictions.

Confident Flynn cooked up this lie only after realizing he’d crossed a line that might imperil his future Fox bookings & CPAC speaker fees. Doubt he’s fooling anyone, but they’ll love the media bias schtick, & if you don’t show the video, implausible deniability is good enough.

Aside from the comically desperate lie about his own videotaped remarks, Flynn calls it “a conference of patriotic Americans who love this country, as I do”? They were CHEERING the idea of a brutal military coup that murders civilians being replicated in the United States.

If he cared about selling the lie, he’d at least go through the motions of feigning horror at the bloodthirsty crowd. But he doesn’t want to jeopardize the money & attention from the cranks. It’s juuust enough of a feeble pro-forma denial to keep him booked on Fox.

Of course, last time he brazenly lied about remarks he made that were caught on tape, he not only ultimately got away with it but earned himself celebrity martyr status in the process, so little wonder he thinks he can pull it off when it’s not even FBI asking.