In today's #vatnik soup I'll introduce an ex-Army man and conspiracy theorist Michael Flynn. His tenure as the National Security Advisor is the shortest in history, as he had misled VP Pence and lied to the FBI about his dealings with the Russians.
1/17
He served in Afghanistan and in Iraq and rose quickly in rank in the US Army. Throughout his career, he forgot an important idiom, "loose lips sink ships" and shared secret intel very openly: in one incident, he revealed sensitive US intel to Pakistani officials ...
2/17
... on the militant Haqqani network, but it turned out that Haqqani was actually a proxy ally of Pakistan. He was also investigated by the CIA for allegedly sharing highly classified intel with Australian and British forces.
3/17
In 2011, Flynn started working at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Flynn was criticized by his colleagues for his chaotic management style and his views on counter terrorism, and he was released from DIA in mid-2014.
4/17
A leaked e-mail revealed that he was let go because he was "abusive with staff, didn't listen, worked against policy, bad management, etc." He also tended to lie a lot, and his assertions were referred to as "Flynn facts".
5/17
For some reason, Flynn really liked dealing with the Russians. In 2013, while working at the DIA, he became the first US officer to visit Russian military intelligence's (GRU) headquarters in 2013. In 2014, Flynn had a close association with a Russian woman ...
6/17
... and the event was reported to the American authorities.
In Dec, 2015, Flynn attended RT's 10th anniversary gala in Moscow. At the event he was seated next to Putin and gave a talk on world affairs. For this gig, he was paid 45 000 USD.
7/17
His consulting firm Flynn Intel Group Inc. also got lucrative deals from Russian companies in 2015. He received a total of 65 000 USD from companies such as Kaspersky Lab and Volga-Dnepr Airlines.
8/17
But he didn't help just Russia - In Sep, 2016, he was consulting a company linked to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.This work paid him 530 000USD and was completed in 2016, but he only registered himself as a foreign agent in 2017. Incidentally, Flynn had condemned...9/17
..Erdogan's regime earlier,praising the ongoing coup d'état attempt against him,but apparently the money changed his mind later on. In 2017 he was discussing with Turkish officials about abducting a Turkish dissident to Turkey,thus bypassing the US extradition legal process.10/17
In 2016 Trump asked Flynn to serve as an advisor on his presidential campaign and was even considered being his running mate. During Trump's campaign, he posted anti-Semitic and conspiracy theory content, including the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.
11/17
Flynn was awarded a position as Trump's National Security Advisor. While there, he did several phone calls with Russian diplomat Sergey Kislyak.During these calls, the two discussed about the election interference, sanctions on Russian officials & UN Security Council vote.
12/17
These conversations were intercepted by the FBI as part of a routine surveillance and were later on published by the press.
In Feb, 2017, Flynn resigned as National Security Advisor and in Dec, 2017 Trump said that he had to fire Flynn because he lied to the VP Pence and the FBI.
In Dec, 2017, Flynn agreed to a plea bargain and pleaded guilty about lying to the FBI about the Kislyak phone calls.14/17
His sentencing was delayed several times, and he was eventually pardoned by president Trump in Nov, 2020. Just days after being pardoned, he tweeted that Trump should declare Martial Law and call for re-vote. He also took part in "Stop the Steal" rallies.
15/17
Flynn has been connected to the QAnon movement, and CNN published a video of Flynn doing a QAnon oath with his close family. In leaked text messages and phone calls between Flynn and a QAnon follower, he said that QAnon was a psyop by "the Left" or by the CIA.
16/17
These days he's participating in right wing,conservative events like ReAwaken America & Patriot Roundup,that consist of QAnon followers,Christian nationalists,election deniers, antivaxxers, insurrectionists and,well, you know the type.
Related soups:
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American far-right social media personality, Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes). He’s best-known for his white supremacist, misogynistic and antisemitic rhetoric, and for being the poster boy for the so-called incel movement.
1/17
Like so many from the white supremacist movement, Fuentes dropped out of university after his freshman year. He studied introductory international relations, which apparently made him a geopolitics expert. Nick was introduced to the white supremacist movement at an…
2/17
..early age - he took part in the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,Virginia. In 2017, Fuentes launched his political talk show “America First”. Initially the show was aired on Trump-aligned Right Side Broadcasting Network, but it was dropped after the rally.
3/17
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss foreign malign influence operations during the 2024 US elections. As in 2016 and 2020, these recent elections were also a target of massive disinformation and hacking campaigns originating mostly from Russia and Iran.
1/17
First of all, my opinion is that these influence operations alone didn’t affect the elections so much, that they actually made a difference.
Unlike in 2016, Trump’s win over Harris was clear and these short-term campaigns didn’t really change that much this time.
2/17
Yet, many of these online campaigns attacked both Harris and Walz on various social media platforms. Especially Walz became a big target after his nomination, and many Russian efforts attempted to defame him.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a social media personality and TV presenter, Raisa Blommestijn (@rblommestijn). She’s best-known for her far-right rhetorics, spreading conspiracy theories, and spreading anti-Ukraine and pro-Kremlin narratives on Dutch television.
1/24
Raisa studied philosophy of law at Leiden University. The faculty is best-known for one of its professors, Paul Cliteur. He’s a member of the pro-Kremlin party Forum voor Democratie (FvD), where he is one of the leading figures.Cliteur is also known for supervising the FvD…
2/24
…founder Thierry Baudet’s doctoral thesis, and can be considered a central figure in this Dutch “anti-establishment” movement. While studying at Leiden, Raise also met her best friend forever, Eva Vlaardingerbroek:
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American podcaster, Darryl Cooper (@martyrmade). He’s best-known for “Martyr Made”, a history podcast that provides a strongly revisionist and biased analysis on historical events such as the Revolution of Dignity and World War II.
1/22
Darryl became known to big audiences in 2021, when he published a Twitter thread in which he basically described a massive conspiracy against Trump during both 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. The culprits were predictable: the corporate press, intelligence agencies…
2/22
…and of course the evil Democrats. To Darryl, Russia was not working together with the Trump campaign, even though there’s clear evidence that many of his officials - including Carter Page, Rex Tillerson, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort - interacted intimately with…
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’m going to outline the current situation in the West’s information war against Russia & its allies. Currently,the West’s counter-disinformation measures are severely underfunded,making it difficult to combat Russian influence operations effectively.
1/17
Europe today is repeating the same mistake in information warfare that it made in conventional warfare: we are not dedicating enough resources to counter it. Just as Europe was unprepared to fully support Ukraine and prepare for kinetic warfare against Russia,...
2/17
...we have been neglecting information warfare. Next year, Russia is reportedly set to spend around 3 billion USD on its information operations domestically and abroad, with allies like the CCP, Iran, and North Korea likely following suit.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation (@Heritage). Heritage is best-known for opposing military aid to Ukraine and for their political initiative called Project 2025, a potential blueprint for a Trump presidency.
1/23
Before we begin, I want to justify this soup that focuses heavily on US domestic politics. As a strong supporter of Ukraine, I see Donald Trump as a threat to Ukraine’s existence, and the reasoning for that can be found in this previous soup:
Heritage was founded in 1973, but it took a leading role in conservative politics during the Reagan presidency, whose policies were mostly taken from the foundation’s book series called Mandate for Leadership. Project 2025 is the ninth iteration of this series.