Martial Law

Subterms

    Latest story

    125 Shares99 Views

    A Wartime Election in Ukraine? It’s a Political Hot Potato.

    by

    In normal circumstances, Ukraine’s president would face voters next spring. Analysts say a wartime election is unlikely, but the prospect is causing some anxiety in Kyiv.It might seem like a huge distraction at the height of a full-scale war, not to mention a logistical nightmare: holding a presidential election as Russian missiles fly into the Ukrainian capital and artillery assaults reduce whole towns to ruins.But President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has not ruled it out. His five-year term ends in several months, and if not for the war, he would be preparing to either step down or campaign for a second term.Analysts consider the possibility of wartime balloting a long shot, and under martial law, elections in Ukraine are suspended. Still, there is talk among Kyiv’s political class that Mr. Zelensky might seek a vote, with far-reaching implications for his government, the war and political opponents, who worry he will lock in a new term in an environment when competitive elections are all but impossible.The debate over an election comes against the backdrop of mounting pressure on Ukraine to show to Western donors Ukraine’s good governance credentials, which Mr. Zelensky has touted. Opponents say a one-sided wartime election could weaken that effort.A petition opposing such an election has drawn signatures from 114 prominent Ukrainian civil society activists.A new electoral mandate could strengthen Mr. Zelensky’s hand in any decision about whether to commit to an extended fight, or insulate him if eventual settlement talks with Russia dent his popularity and hurt his chances of re-election later.Mr. Zelensky has said he favors elections, but only if international monitors can certify them as free, fair and inclusive, and he has outlined multiple obstacles to holding a vote. Political opponents have been more categorical in rejecting elections, which before the Russian invasion were scheduled for March and April next year, saying the war was creating too much turmoil to properly conduct a vote.Serhiy Prytula, who runs a charity in support of the war effort, ranks high among the most respected leaders in the country.Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times“The first step is victory; the second step is everything else,” including a revival of domestic politics in Ukraine, said Serhiy Prytula, an opposition figure and the director of a charity assisting the military. Opinion surveys regularly rank him in the top three most respected leaders in the country, along with Mr. Zelensky and the commander of the military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny.Mr. Prytula, a former comedic actor, had set up an exploratory committee to run for Parliament before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, following the path from show business to politics taken by Mr. Zelensky, who had played a president in a television series before winning the presidency in 2019. For now, Mr. Prytula has halted all political activity during the war. The Biden administration and European governments supporting Ukraine militarily have not weighed in publicly on an election. But the idea garnered wider attention when Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said the country should go ahead with a vote despite the war.“You must also do two things at the same time,” Mr. Graham said on a visit to Kyiv in August. “I want this country to have free and fair elections, even when it’s under attack.”To hold elections, Ukraine would have to lift, at least temporarily, martial law in the case of a vote for Parliament or amend the law in the case of a vote for president. In a photo provided by the Ukrainian government, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, center, attended a ceremony in July. He is seen as a prospective challenger to Mr. Zelensky in future elections.Agence France-Presse, via Ukrainian Presidential Press ServiceMr. Zelensky has cited as a major obstacle the need to ensure that Ukrainians living under Russian occupation can vote without retribution. “We are ready,” he told a conference in Kyiv last month. “It’s not a question of democracy. This is exclusively an issue of security.”The Ukrainian leader has said online voting might be a solution.Among the states of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine is the country with the largest population to have succeeded in transferring power democratically. Its criminal justice system has been riddled with corruption, and the privatization of state property has been mismanaged, but elections had been consistently deemed free and fair by international monitors. Ukrainians have elected six presidents since gaining independence in 1991.“Ukraine’s commitment to democracy is not in question, and being forced to postpone elections due to war doesn’t change this,” said Peter Erben, the Ukraine director of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, a pro-democracy group funded by Western governments. Ukrainian politics have revolved around parties formed by prominent personalities rather than policy positions. There is Fatherland, led by Yulia Tymoshenko, the most prominent woman in Ukrainian politics; the Punch, led by Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv and a former boxer; the Voice, led by Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, a rock star; and Mr. Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, named for a TV show.Senator Lindsey Graham visited Kyiv in May. He returned in August and spoke about potential elections.Sergei Supinsky/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMilitary veterans are widely expected to play an outsize role in Ukrainian politics when elections resume, as voters and as candidates who could challenge the current political class.Holding an election before the war ends could lock in seats for parties in Parliament now, including Mr. Zelensky’s, while soldiers are still serving in the military and unable to run for office.“A scheduled election isn’t necessary for our democracy,” said Olha Aivazovska, the director of OPORA, a Ukrainian civil society group that monitors elections. There is no means now for refugees, frontline soldiers and residents of occupied territory to vote, she said.An election in “the hot phase of the war” would almost certainly undermine, not reinforce, Mr. Zelensky’s legitimacy, she said.Even those who favor an election cite concerns about a potential consolidation of power. Oleg Soskin, an economist and adviser to a former Ukrainian president, has called for elections despite the war, warning that Mr. Zelensky could otherwise usurp authority under martial law. But that is an outlying view in Kyiv. The debate about a potential election represents some re-emergence of familiar political clashes in a Ukrainian government long marked by infighting and vendettas. Most of Mr. Zelensky’s political opponents have refrained from being overly critical of him during the war, but they say a vote now would be unfair.Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, center, and his brother Vladimir Klitschko, left, visiting a residential area after shelling in 2022.Roman Pilipey/EPA, via Shutterstock“I understand the government wants to maintain its position while ratings are high,” said Dmytro Razumkov, a former chairman of Parliament in the political opposition. Mr. Zelensky’s chances of victory, he said, “will almost certainly be lower after the end of the war.”An election now would only weaken Ukraine as politicians campaigned, competing with and criticizing one another, said Volodymyr Ariev, a member of Parliament from the opposition European Solidarity party. He has advocated for Mr. Zelensky to form a national unity government that would include members of the opposition.“It jeopardizes the unity of society,” he added.Public opinion surveys have consistently suggested that a prospective challenger to Mr. Zelensky in future elections could be the commander of his army, General Zaluzhny. As a serving military officer, he is barred from participating in an election during the war.Dmytro Razumkov, former chairman of Ukraine’s Parliament, in his office on Wednesday.Brendan Hoffman for The New York TimesMr. Zelensky still consistently leads in surveys of leaders whom Ukrainians trust. A recent poll by United Ukraine, a nonpartisan research group, showed 91 percent of Ukrainians trusted Mr. Zelensky, 87 percent trusted General Zaluzhny, and 81 percent trusted Mr. Prytula.Polls have also shown high support for Mr. Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv; Vitaly Kim, the head of the civil military administration in the southern region of Mykolaiv; and Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council.Mr. Prytula’s charity has boosted his national stature during the war. It draws donations from millions of Ukrainians to provide drones, body armor, rifle scopes and other supplies to the army at a time when activities supporting the army are immensely popular domestically.Mr. Prytula said he was focused solely on keeping Ukrainians united behind the war effort. Holding an election now, he said, would be pointless because Mr. Zelensky would all but certainly win.“He is No. 1,” he said. “Our society supports him.”Maria Varenikova More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      The Marcos Family Gets Star Treatment in a New Philippines Film

      by

      A big-budget production depicts the family as victims of a political vendetta, a popular narrative during the recent presidential election in the Philippines.MANILA — Even before its opening night last week, “Maid in Malacanang” was shaping up to be the most talked-about film of the year in the Philippines.The almost two-hour drama portrays the Marcos family’s last days in the presidential palace before being forced into exile by a pro-democracy revolt in 1986.“We did everything for this country after World War II, only to be destroyed by the people who yearn for power,” a sobbing Imelda R. Marcos tells her son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., in one scene. “Remember this, we will never be able to return after we leave. They will do everything so the Filipino people will hate us.”A teary-eyed Mr. Marcos, played by the young actor Diego Loyzaga, consoles his mother as he replies, “I promise, I don’t know how or when, but we will return.”The Marcoses returned to the Philippines in the 1990s, but the family’s biggest comeback happened in May, when Mr. Marcos, the son and namesake of the former dictator, was elected president in the most consequential race in three decades. The release of “Maid in Malacanang,” a big-budget production starring two famous actors, is seen as a sort of victory lap for the new president and his family.Ruffa Gutierrez, who plays former first lady Imelda R. Marcos, shooting a scene on the set of the movie “Maid in Malacanang.”Viva Films“This is a work of truth,” Imee Marcos said at the movie’s premiere. One of Mr. Marcos’s sisters, she was the movie’s creative producer and executive producer. “We waited 36 years for this story to come out.”Despite the corruption and tax evasion cases against the family, many Filipinos consider the Marcoses something like royalty, an idea that the film plays on while furthering the myth that they were victims of a political vendetta.More than 30 million people voted for Mr. Marcos in May, allowing him to clinch the presidency with the largest vote margin in more than 30 years. Nearly half the country believes the family was unjustly forced to flee.But many of Mr. Marcos’s detractors say he won the election because of a yearslong campaign to rewrite Marcos family history and the legacy of the father’s brutal dictatorship. “Maid in Malacanang,” they say, is just the latest attempt to rewrite the narrative.The movie is told through the eyes of three maids who worked for the Marcoses during the years leading up the 1986 People Power revolution, when hundreds of thousands of people marched through the streets of Manila to protest against a family that they saw as corrupt.Imelda R. Marcos, left, arriving in Hawaii on Feb. 26, 1986, the day after the Marcos family’s departure into exile from the Philippines.Carl Viti/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe film portrays the former dictator, Ferdinand E. Marcos, who ruled the Philippines for over two decades, as a soft leader incapable of violence — a popular talking point among Marcos family supporters online. The movie also portrays the Marcoses as ordinary people who love simple food, even as they surround themselves with designer bags and jewelry.What the film does not mention: the widespread public anger over the family’s excesses, such as Imelda Marcos’s 1,060 pairs of shoes. Also missing is any mention of the tens of thousands of people who were tortured during martial law.“I was not alive during the term of president Marcos, but I was surprised to see a different story, different from what I heard from other people,” said Maricar Amores Faypon-Sicat, a moviegoer who saw the film on opening night.“I did not know that he wanted to avoid bloodshed, and until the last minute, he was thinking of the Filipino people,” said Ms. Amores Faypon-Sicat, 29.Darryl Yap, the director, said the decision to make the film came only after the presidential election, though he had done some preliminary work ahead of that time. He said the landslide win for Mr. Marcos was “an overwhelming testament that the Filipino people are ready to hear the side of the Marcoses.”Speaking to a select audience at the July 29 premiere, Mr. Yap said the film was the first time that viewers were given an opportunity to watch a film about the Marcos family that was not based on the opposition’s narrative.Supporters of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at his campaign headquarters during the presidential election in May. Mr. Marcos’s landslide win was “an overwhelming testament that the Filipino people are ready to hear the side of the Marcoses,” according to Darryl Yap, the director of the movie.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesNot everyone has been receptive.Members of the Roman Catholic clergy condemned the depiction of Corazon Aquino, the leader of the opposition, playing mahjong with nuns from the Carmelite monastery in Cebu Province at the height of the protests. One leader of the church has called for a boycott of the movie.Sister Mary Melanie Costillas, the head of the monastery, said the truth was that the nuns were praying and fasting during the demonstrations, fearful that the elder Mr. Marcos would find Mrs. Aquino, who was sheltering at the monastery to avoid being detained. At that time, there were reports that Mr. Marcos had issued a shoot-to-kill order against Mrs. Aquino.“The attempt to distort history is reprehensible,” Sister Costillas said in a statement. She said that the mahjong scene “would trivialize whatever contribution we had to democracy.”The actress playing Irene Marcos, the Marcoses’ youngest child, fueled outrage after she likened the accusations against the family and the details of the father’s human rights abuses to “gossip.”Corazon Aquino, right, a leader of the opposition, during a rally in February 1986. Members of the clergy have condemned how she and the nuns who sheltered her are portrayed in the movie.Romeo Gacad/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHistorians and artists say the movie has opened up a new front in the battle against misinformation in the Philippines, taking something that was once mostly online and bringing it into a new domain.“I now feel that the struggle has shifted to the cultural sphere,” said Bonifacio Ilagan, 71, a renowned playwright. He said that the movie mainly targets the younger generation who never experienced martial law. “They are vulnerable to disinformation. They are the market of the film because they lack historical sense.”Mr. Ilagan, who was tortured during the Marcos years, has teamed up with Joel Lamangan, a well-known movie director, to make a film to counter the narrative of “Maid in Malacanang.” Mr. Lamangan was the first member of the local directors guild to publicly denounce the Marcos-backed film as “pure nonsense,” which he said resulted in death threats.They expect financing their project to be a challenge. “It will be an uphill climb because we have no producer and we have no money,” said Mr. Lamangan, 69, who is also a martial law victim. “But we are trying to do crowdfunding.”The Wall of Remembrance at the martial law museum in Manila. The museum honors those who struggled against the dictatorship of Ferdinand E. Marcos.Ezra Acayan for The New York Times“Maid in Malacanang” was bankrolled by a major local film production company known for producing blockbusters in the Philippines.The underlying narrative of the film is centered on the legacy of the elder Mr. Marcos and how people will remember him. In one scene, a wistful Mr. Marcos asks Irene as she begs him to leave the palace: “How will I face my grandchildren? Their grandfather is a soldier, but he retreated from war.”A weeping Irene responds: “I will make sure that the truth will come out and history will tell your grandkids who you really are.”Mr. Marcos tells his daughter that the opposition was “mad at us because we come from the province. They are mad at us because the people love us. But still, I can’t make myself get angry at them.”At the premiere, the audience applauded. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Fearing a Trump Repeat, Jan. 6 Panel Considers Changes to Insurrection Act

      by

      The 1807 law allows a president to deploy American troops inside the country to put down a rebellion. Lawmakers fear it could be abused by a future president trying to stoke one.WASHINGTON — In the days before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, some of President Donald J. Trump’s most extreme allies and members of right-wing militia groups urged him to use his power as commander in chief to unleash the military to help keep him in office.Now, as the House committee investigating last year’s riot uncovers new evidence about the lengths to which Mr. Trump was willing to go to cling to power, some lawmakers on the panel have quietly begun discussions about rewriting the Insurrection Act, the 1807 law that gives presidents wide authority to deploy the military within the United States to respond to a rebellion.The discussions are preliminary, and debate over the act has been fraught in the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s presidency. Proponents envision a doomsday scenario in which a rogue future president might try to use the military to stoke — rather than put down — an insurrection, or to abuse protesters. But skeptics worry about depriving a president of the power to quickly deploy armed troops in the event of an uprising, as presidents did during the Civil War and the civil rights era.While Mr. Trump never invoked the law, he threatened to do so in 2020 to have the military crack down on crowds protesting the police killing of George Floyd. Stephen Miller, one of his top advisers, also proposed putting it into effect to turn back migrants at the southwestern border, an idea that was rejected by the defense secretary at the time, Mark T. Esper.And as Mr. Trump grasped for ways to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, some hard-right advisers encouraged him to declare martial law and deploy U.S. troops to seize voting machines. In the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack, members of right-wing militia groups also encouraged Mr. Trump to invoke the law, believing that he was on the brink of giving them approval to descend on Washington with weapons to fight on his behalf.“There are many of us who are of the view that the Insurrection Act, which the former president threatened to invoke multiple times throughout 2020, bears a review,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and a member of the Jan. 6 committee.While no evidence has emerged that Mr. Trump planned to invoke the act to stay in office, people close to him were pushing for him to do so. Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, attended a meeting in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020, in which participants discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency and invoking certain national security emergency powers. That meeting came after Mr. Flynn gave an interview to the right-wing television network Newsmax in which he talked about a purported precedent for deploying troops and declaring martial law to “rerun” the election.Some hard-right advisers to Mr. Trump encouraged him to declare martial law and deploy U.S. troops to seize voting machines after the 2020 election.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesThe idea was also floated by Roger J. Stone Jr., the political operative and longtime confidant of Mr. Trump, who told the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in an interview that Mr. Trump should consider invoking the Insurrection Act.In the weeks before the riot, the notion was prevalent among militia members and other hard-right supporters of Mr. Trump. It has surfaced repeatedly in evidence that federal prosectors and the House committee have obtained during their investigations into the Capitol attack.In December 2020, Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia group, wrote an open letter to Mr. Trump in which he called on the president to “use the Insurrection Act to ‘stop the steal,’” begin seizing voting data and order a new election.“Clearly, an unlawful combination and conspiracy in multiple states (indeed, in every state) has acted to deprive the people of the fundamental right to vote for their representatives in a clear, fair election,” Mr. Rhodes wrote, adding, “You, and you alone, are fully authorized by the Insurrection Act to determine that such a situation exists and to use the U.S. military and militia to rectify that situation.”Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia group, wrote an open letter to Mr. Trump in which he called on the president to “use the Insurrection Act to ‘stop the steal.’”Jim Urquhart/ReutersIn text messages and social media posts ahead of the Capitol riot, other Oath Keepers members also discussed the possibility of Mr. Trump invoking the Insurrection Act. Two of them, Jessica Watkins and Kelly Meggs, the head of the militia’s Florida chapter, have been charged in connection with the attack.And Mr. Rhodes sent armed men to a hotel in Virginia on Jan. 6 to await Mr. Trump’s order, which the militia leader said would nullify Washington gun restrictions and allow the group to take up arms and fight for the president.The House committee, which has interviewed more than 850 witnesses, is charged with writing an authoritative report about the events that led to the violence of Jan. 6 and coming up with legislative recommendations to try to protect American democracy from a repeat. Though their recommendations are likely to garner widespread attention, they are not guaranteed to become law.One such recommendation is almost certainly to be an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act, which Mr. Trump and his allies tried to use to overturn the 2020 election. In recent weeks, the panel has begun discussing whether to call for revisions to the Insurrection Act, which empowers the president to deploy troops to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy.”The changes under discussion could add a higher and more detailed threshold for a president to meet before he could deploy troops domestically, including requiring consultation with Congress.“Essentially, the former president threatened by tweet to send in the armed services to take over civilian governments, because he saw things that he didn’t like on TV,” Ms. Lofgren said, referring to Mr. Trump’s threats to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to racial justice protests. “That’s not really the history of the use of the act, and maybe more definition of terms might be in order.”The last time lawmakers turned their attention to a potential overhaul of the Insurrection Act was after Mr. Trump threatened in 2020 to invoke it to crush protests that spread across the country after a white police officer killed Mr. Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in Minnesota.“If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” Mr. Trump said then. White House aides drafted a proclamation to invoke the Insurrection Act in case the president followed through with the threat.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3Debating a criminal referral. More

    • 113 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Michael Flynn Re-emerges Pushing QAnon, Stolen 2020 Election Lies

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutTracking the ArrestsVisual TimelineInside the SiegeMurder Charges?The Oath KeepersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPushing QAnon and Stolen Election Lies, Flynn Re-emergesRecast by President Trump’s most ardent supporters as a MAGA martyr, Michael T. Flynn has embraced his role as the man who spent four years unjustly ensnared in the Russia investigation.Michael T. Flynn at the Dec. 12 rally in Washington to protest the presidential election.Credit…Jonathan Ernst/ReutersFeb. 6, 2021Updated 4:48 p.m. ETIn Washington’s respectable circles, Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, is a discredited and dishonored ex-general, a once-esteemed military intelligence officer who went off the rails ideologically and then was fired a mere 24 days into the Trump administration for lying to the F.B.I. about contacts with the Russian ambassador.As if he cared.Where others see disgrace, Mr. Flynn, 62, has found redemption. Recast by former President Donald J. Trump’s most ardent supporters as a MAGA martyr, Mr. Flynn has embraced his role as the man who spent four years unjustly ensnared in the Russia investigation.He was one of the most extreme voices in Mr. Trump’s 77-day push to overturn the election, a campaign that will be under scrutiny as the former president’s second impeachment trial gets underway next week. Mr. Flynn went so far as to suggest using the military to rerun the vote in crucial battleground states. At one point, Mr. Trump even floated the idea of bringing Mr. Flynn back into the administration, as chief of staff or possibly F.B.I. director, people familiar with the conversations told The New York Times.And now, safely pardoned and free to speak his mind, Mr. Flynn has emerged from the Trump presidency much as he entered it — as the angry outsider who pushes fringe ideas, talks of shadowy conspiracies and is positioning himself as a voice of a far right that, in the wake of the Capitol riot, appears newly, and violently, emboldened.All that has changed for Mr. Flynn are the subjects at hand, and his apparent willingness to cash in on his notoriety.Mr. Flynn’s dark view of Islam and eagerness to cultivate President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia have given way to an embrace of QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory, and a readiness to question the very fabric of American democracy. He has swapped a government job and an obsessive focus on “radical Islamic terrorism” for selling QAnon-branded T-shirts and a new media partnership with conspiracy theorists called Digital Soldiers.Yet his underlying message remains much the same as it was back in 2016, when he was leading chants of “lock her up” at Trump rallies: Washington’s establishment is irredeemably corrupt, and real Americans — that is, supporters of himself and Mr. Trump — are wise to it.“This country is awake,” he declared at the pro-Trump rally in Washington last month. “We will not stand for a lie.”It was the night before a mob attacked the Capitol, and the crowd on hand in Washington’s Freedom Plaza — some of whom would take part in the coming violence — left little doubt about where Mr. Flynn stood.“We love you, we love you, we love you,” they chanted. None of the other speakers at the rally — a boldface-name collection of Trumpworld characters like Roger Stone and Alex Jones — got as enthusiastic a reception.With Mr. Trump now in his post-presidency at Mar-a-Lago, a loose coalition that draws together militia members and conspiracy theorists along with evangelical Christians and suburban Trump supporters is searching for direction. Call it the alt-truth movement, and if it is to coalesce into something more permanent, it may well be, at least in part, because figures like Mr. Flynn continue to push false claims of how a deep-state cabal stole the election.“In order for us to breathe the fresh air of liberty, we the people, we are the ones that will decide our path forward, America’s future forward,” he said at the Jan. 5 rally. “It may not be a Republican Party, it may not be a Democratic Party, it will be a people’s party.”Martial LawMr. Flynn, who did not respond to an interview request for this article, spent 33 years as an Army intelligence officer, earning a reputation for being outspoken and unconventional and, in the years that followed the Sept. 11 attacks, for being unusually good at unwinding terrorist networks.Much of that work involved mapping out loose webs of ideological fellow travelers, figuring out who gave voice to extremist ideas and who committed the violence — two groups that were not always directly tied to each other. If a similar attempt was made to map the network of people who spread Mr. Trump’s stolen-election lie that led to the storming of the Capitol, Mr. Flynn himself would probably appear as one of those leading voices for his part in riling up Mr. Trump’s supporters without taking part in the attack.Perhaps most responsible for Mr. Flynn’s re-emergence is the conspiracy-theorizing lawyer Sidney Powell. Ms. Powell took over his legal defense in the Russia investigation after he had twice pleaded guilty in a deal to cooperate with prosecutors, and charted a combative new path. She challenged the deal and, marshaling a small army of like-minded Twitter users, recast Mr. Flynn from a turncoat into a victim, a man who had taken the fall to save his son, who was also under investigation.Mr. Flynn with his son, Mike Flynn Jr., at Trump Tower in New York in 2016.Credit…Sam Hodgson for The New York TimesIt was the story of the Russia investigation as a malevolent plot that first began priming tens of millions of Americans to believe Mr. Trump’s conspiracy theories about the deep state. As one of the heroes of that narrative, Mr. Flynn became an ideal messenger when it was refashioned into the demonstrably false claim that Democrats and their deep-state allies had rigged the election.Within days of being pardoned on Nov. 27, Mr. Flynn began sharing those views in the right-wing media.In some appearances, he described himself as a marked man. “I gotta make sure I’m a moving target, because these son-of-a-guns, they’re after me, in a literal and a figurative sense,” he told listeners of “The Matrixxx Groove Show,” a QAnon podcast.In an interview with Newsmax, the conservative channel, he suggested Mr. Trump could impose martial law in swing states he had lost and rerun the elections.“People out there talk about martial law like it’s something that we’ve never done,” Mr. Flynn said. He noted that the military had taken over for civilian authorities dozens of times in American history, though he did not mention that it had never done so to help decide an election.The suggestion horrified many of Mr. Flynn’s former compatriots in uniform. Even discussing personal politics is frowned upon in the military, and most generals see it as their duty to stay above the political fray after retirement, as well. There have long been exceptions, of course, but to many who had served with Mr. Flynn, a retired general calling for the military to help decide an American election represented a new level of recklessness.“Mike, stop. Just stop. You are a former soldier,” Tony Thomas, a retired general who headed the Joint Special Operations Command, wrote on Twitter. Throughout his military career, in fact, all most of Mr. Flynn’s fellow soldiers had known about his politics was that he was a registered Democrat. Then came 2016, and the sight of a retired general leading chants for the imprisonment of Hillary Clinton, a former senator and secretary of state.When a number of generals privately and publicly urged him to dial back his support for Mr. Trump, Mr. Flynn called them “disrespectful.” If they could use their titles to get on corporate boards, he could use his to back Mr. Trump, he countered in an interview at the time, saying, “I care deeply about this country.”In any case, he said, he had never really been part of their club.‘Flynn Facts’Mr. Flynn has described his family as “definitely lower middle class,” and he joined the military without the West Point pedigree of many of his peers. He graduated instead from the Army’s Reserve Officer Training Program at the University of Rhode Island, a short drive from the town where he was raised.Yet he rose to be a lieutenant general, among the most respected military officers of his generation. He helped reshape the Joint Special Operations Command at the height of the war in Iraq, and ran military intelligence in Afghanistan during the Obama administration’s troop surge. In 2012, President Barack Obama named him director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.Mr. Flynn, the Obama administration’s director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testing before Congress with James Clapper, then head of national intelligence.Credit…Christopher Gregory/The New York TimesThen his career unraveled. After only two years, he was forced out when his attempt to reform the sprawling agency left subordinates squabbling and his superiors alarmed.Mr. Flynn, though, claimed that he had been fired for refusing to toe the Obama administration’s line that Islamist militants were in retreat. His position was vindicated with the rise of the Islamic State, and Mr. Flynn quickly became something of a cult figure among conservatives for what they saw as his brave stand against the Obama administration’s perfidy..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1amoy78{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1amoy78{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1amoy78:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.As his relentless focus on Islamist militancy intensified, his views veered hard to the right. He argued that militants posed a threat to the very existence of the United States, and at times crossed the line into outright Islamophobia, tweeting “fear of Muslims is RATIONAL.”In Mr. Trump, he found a presidential candidate who shared his dark and conspiratorial view of Islam.The similarities between the two men did not end there: Both shared a fondness for Twitter and often exhibited a loose relationship with the truth. When Mr. Flynn ran the D.I.A., his dubious assertions were so common that subordinates came up with a name for them: “Flynn facts.” (In January, he was among those banned from Twitter with Mr. Trump.)So it was no great stretch to see Mr. Flynn hurling conspiracy theories about an election that federal election-security experts considered among the best run on record, and for Mr. Trump to listen.Supporters gathered outside a sentencing hearing in Washington in 2018 after Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. Credit…Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLast Dec. 18, Mr. Flynn participated in a raucous White House meeting in which Ms. Powell proposed that the president appoint her as a special counsel investigating voter fraud. Mr. Trump at one point also raised the idea of putting Mr. Flynn in charge of the F.B.I., and later suggested making him chief of staff for the final weeks of his administration, according to Trump and Flynn associates familiar with the conversations, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering either man.Whether the president was serious about either idea is an open question. But Mr. Flynn shot them down, saying he needed to focus on paying off millions of dollars in legal debts he had amassed fighting off the Russia investigation.Joining the FringeHis plan for paying those bills appears to rely on leveraging his public persona into cold, hard cash. There are the T-shirts and other merchandise, which he is selling through a company called Shirt Show USA. The website features shirts emblazoned with #FightLikeAFlynn and camo trucker hats with the emblem “WWG1WGA,” a reference to a popular QAnon motto, “Where we go one, we go all.”Then there is his new media venture, Digital Soldiers, which will publish reader-submitted stories. Mr. Flynn is building it with UncoverDC, a website that has pushed QAnon and conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 pandemic and President Biden.The tenor of Digital Soldiers is unmistakably QAnon, a movement centered on the claim that Mr. Trump, secretly aided by the military, was elected to smash a cabal of Democrats, international financiers and deep-state bureaucrats who worship Satan and abuse children. The supposed dishonesty of the mainstream media is central to QAnon, and Digital Soldiers — a phrase followers often use to describe themselves — represents Mr. Flynn’s fullest embrace of the movement to date.“Digital Soldiers from all over the world have stepped up to fill the void where real journalism once stood,” the website says.This past summer, Mr. Flynn posted a video of himself taking QAnon’s “digital soldier” oath. To many of the movement’s followers, Mr. Flynn ranks just below Mr. Trump. Some have speculated that he is the mysterious figure known as “Q,” the purported government insider with a high-level security clearance who began posting cryptic messages in 2017 about the deep state trying to destroy the president.Mr. Flynn posted a video of himself taking a QAnon oath this past summer.“They really take his word as gospel,” said Travis View, a close observer of the movement who hosts the podcast “QAnon Anonymous.” “In the mythology, they often say that he knows where the bodies are buried, and that’s why they tried to railroad him over Russia.”The phrase “digital soldiers” is drawn from a speech Mr. Flynn gave shortly after the 2016 election during which he inadvertently laid the groundwork for the conspiracy theory. He compared the Trump campaign to an insurgency — a theme that QAnon adherents would later adopt for themselves — with “an army of digital soldiers.”“This was irregular warfare at its finest — in politics,” he said.Among QAnon faithful, who believe that Mr. Trump and others use public statements to send secret signals, Mr. Flynn’s speech is considered something of a foundational text. And now, in naming his new media outlet Digital Soldiers, many believe he is sending them a message to carry on, even though Mr. Trump left office before the predicted apocalyptic showdown with his enemies — know as “the storm” — could come to pass.As one QAnon devotee noted in an IRC channel, a relatively dated online chat room technology favored by those particularly suspicious of possible surveillance, “If they kill or capture Trump, Flynn can still carry out the mission.”“The troops march to the beat of his drum,” wrote the user, who went by the screen name “specialist.”The plan, the user added, was “masterful.”Ken Vogel and Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More