Everything We Know About Mike Flynn, Donald Trump’s Controversial New Adviser
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Flynn, who will advise the president on national security, is a notorious Islamophobe with ties to Russia and Turkey.
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Vanity Fair
For those hoping that Donald Trump would distance himself from his past inflammatory comments on the campaign trail about Muslims, African-Americans, and other minority groups, his recent selection of advisers and potential Cabinet members makes it abundantly clear that a Trump “pivot” is not forthcoming. Earlier this week, the president-elect named as his chief strategist and senior counselor Stephen Bannon, who ran an alt-right news site beloved by white nationalists, among others. On Friday he tapped Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, who in 1986 failed to be confirmed as a federal judge amid discussions of his past alleged racist comments, to serve as attorney general, and Kansas congressman Mike Pompeo, who has his own history of alleged bigoted comments, to run the Central Intelligence Agency. But the man with the most baggage may be Michael Flynn, whom Trump named as his national security adviser.

Given the long-standing concerns about Trump’s temperament, many hoped that the president-elect would surround himself with more sobering forces to act as a counter-balance in the White House. But Flynn does not fit that mold. Though he is a seasoned military veteran whose service has been widely praised, the retired Army general and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency is more than just a combative character known for deriding “political correctness.” Here are just a few of the things we know about the controversial, notoriously Islamophobic hawk who may have the last word on advising the president’s foreign policy.

Flynn is an extreme Islamophobe

Flynn, who served at the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for two years until he was fired by Barack Obama in 2014, has continuously denounced the president’s refusal to use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” staunchly believes that Islam is a political ideology, not a religion, and that Islamic militancy is an “existential” threat facing the United States, according to The New York Times. In February of this year, Flynn tweeted, “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL: please forward this to others: the truth fears no questions…,” accompanied by a link to a YouTube video. One former senior intelligence official described Flynn’s views on Islam to Politico as “off the charts."

He has ties to Russia and Putin

Earlier this year, Flynn came under fire for when, in 2015, he was paid to join Russian president Vladimir Putin at a gala in Moscow hosted by RT, a state-run media organization that has been accused of acting as a propaganda arm of the Kremlin. Like Trump, who pushed a decidedly pro-Russian policy platform during his bid for the presidency, Flynn believes that the U.S. should work more closely with Russia to defeat ISIS, the Times reports, and would likely move to align U.S. foreign policy with that of Russia. “Some of the policy positions he’s advocated, a newfound affinity for the Russian and Kremlin, concern me a great deal,” Adam Schiff, a Democratic congressman from California, told Politico on Thursday.

He reportedly has controversial lobbying ties to Turkey

The retired Army general has come under scrutiny for his consulting firm, which was reportedly contracted to work with a group with ties to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has overseen a brutal crackdown on dissent and press freedoms in Turkey. In the wake of the revelation and amid rumors Flynn was rumored to be a top contender for a position in the incoming Trump administration, Congressman Elijah Cummings, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called for an investigation into Flynn’s potential conflicts of interest. “President-elect Trump promised during his campaign that he would ‘drain the swamp,’ but his top national security adviser is Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, whose firm is reportedly being paid to lobby the U.S. Government by a close ally of Turkey’s president," Cummings said in a statement. “It is unclear how Lt. Gen. Flynn was reportedly allowed into intelligence briefings during the campaign despite these apparent conflicts of interest.”

“Flynn Facts”