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Michael Flynn’s rise was rapid, his fall even faster
WASHINGTON — Michael Flynn was President Donald Trump’s favourite general, rapidly vaulted to prominence by his fiery speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention about jailing Hillary Clinton and by Trump’s decision to reward him with a plum job as his top national security aide.
Flynn’s plunge was even faster. He was fired by Trump after just a month in the White House and left to contend with a mounting criminal probe that led to his decision to plead guilty Friday to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.
Flynn, 58, is the first person who served in the Trump White House to be charged in the wide-ranging investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller into possible co-ordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. He also becomes the first former national security adviser to be charged with a felony since the fallout from the Iran-Contra affair of the mid-1980s.
Flynn came to the fore as the stern, hawkish persona of the tough national security image Trump sought to project to the nation and the world during last year’s campaign. Trump admired “my generals,” as he described the military men he brought into his campaign, and for Flynn, the growing bond with the insurgent GOP candidate was life altering.