Why You Shouldn’t Feel Sorry for Michael Flynn
His defenders say the former national security adviser is getting a bad rap. But what he did was unconscionable—and deeply damaging to U.S. national security.
By SAMANTHA VINOGRAD December 19, 2018
spent almost two years working from a closet in the West Wing that was part of the national security adviser’s suite of offices. The Suite, as we called it, almost never slept. My boss, national security adviser Tom Donilon, and his staff worked around the clock to advance U.S. national security. I usually had a second dinner (cups of peanut M&Ms from the White House Mess were a favorite) around 9 p.m. each night so that I could plow through the pile of memos on my desk and read all of the intelligence that had come in while I was working during normal business hours.
Every national security adviser is different. Some, like Brent Scowcroft, see their role as honest broker, faithfully representing the views of top Cabinet members to help the president make informed decisions. Others, such as Henry Kissinger, tend to promote their own ideas more forcefully. But they all have had one thing in common: They put U.S. national security first. As far as I know, no national security adviser has ever put his or her personal business interests ahead of the country’s.
Michael Flynn changed all of that. A federal judge may have granted him a reprieve at Tuesday’s sentencing hearing—it was rescheduled to March—but let’s recall what President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser stands accused of doing. Flynn belatedly filed documents indicating that he was a foreign agent for the government of Turkey, meaning Turkish officials could have had influence over him while he was at the White House because they knew something the U.S. government didn’t, and we learned that he lied to U.S. law enforcement agents about his contacts with Russia. No wonder the sentencing judge spoke of his “disgust” and “disdain,” even in delaying his fate.
Those still defending Flynn are myopic at best. Even if he didn’t conspire with the Russians or the Turks while he was on the campaign, transition team or, briefly, in the White House, he did enormous damage to U.S. national security, counterintelligence efforts, and policymaking going forward.
By engaging in irresponsible outreach to Russian officials, potentially promising quid pro quos, and undercutting the sitting administration, Flynn knowingly turned himself into a counterintelligence asset for the Russian intelligence services. Flynn is one member of the Trump circle who can’t play the ignorance or the inexperience card when it comes to how to deal with foreign officials: He was, after all, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which produces, analyzes and disseminates military intelligence information to support U.S. military missions. He also served in key intelligence roles including chief intelligence operator for the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq and as intelligence chief at U.S. Central Command. So surely Flynn knew that his communications with the Russians, especially their ambassador to the United States, would be prime manipulation material for Moscow—especially if he didn’t appropriately disclose his contacts or if he lied about them. Lies are great bribery points, and there is zero chance Flynn didn’t know all of this from his decades of intelligence work. He wasn’t dumb enough to turn himself into a Russian or Turkish asset—he just didn’t care about the risks of doing so, apparently.
And what of Trump’s ongoing defense of Flynn? Just on Tuesday, he wished him good luck at his sentencing hearing, and he has reportedly called the retired general to urge him to “stay strong.” It all sends a clear message that this president doesn’t care if you’re working for a government other than our own. National security advisers are supposed to have one customer: the president of the United States. It’s disturbing that President Trump doesn’t seem bothered that his top aide on foreign policy was serving other clients.
A responsible president would use this moment to reset his expectations for the office of the national security adviser and for his whole team. He would remind them that serving the U.S. government and representing America on the world state is an enormous privilege, and they can have only one master. Recirculating the rules on interactions with foreign governments and doing extra hard scrubs of any incoming administration officials could start to ameliorate some of the damage Flynn has done. As a new acting chief of staff enters the White House, he should remind all White House officials how counterintelligence works and why they are prime targets because of their access and influence.
When I was at the White House, there was an FBI investigation into an unauthorized disclosure regarding a covert program in Iran. Several White House officials, including me, were questioned by FBI agents. But the difference then was that illegal activity—in this case, a leak of classified information—was used to remind national security staff about the rules they needed to follow if they wanted to keep their jobs. That’s how incoming White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney should approach his task now, even if the president is blasé—or worse—about his obligations to the American people.
