Michael Flynn, the disgraced former national security adviser-turned-QAnon hero, dismissed the conspiracy movement as “total nonsense” and a CIA-run disinformation campaign, according to audio of a phone call with pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood that was posted online over the weekend.
The phone call was leaked as part of a civil war that has embroiled the QAnon world for the last week, pitting Flynn and Wood, two of the movement’s biggest figures, against each other.
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You might expect that if someone dismissed their own supporters as a bunch of “kooks,” they’d face some backlash. But when you live in QAnon world, up is down, black is white, and Michael Flynn’s admission that the conspiracy is nonsense is simply more evidence that he’s at war with the deep state.
“Flynn, ultimate master spook,” Craig Longley, a leading QAnon influencer known as IET, wrote on his Telegram channel, dismissing Flynn’s comments as a distraction. “[He] will never admit to being a part of Q or knowing anything about it. Trump neither.”
Many QAnon followers conducted similarly complex mental gymnastics so they could continue to view Flynn as a hero working hand-in-hand with former President Trump to unmask the global satanic child sex trafficking ring that is being run by the Democrats and Hollywood elites.
But even so, it’s difficult to read Flynn’s comments as anything but a complete dismissal of the entire QAnon movement, even though Flynn’s own accusations of CIA involvement are based on pure speculation.
“I think it’s a disinformation campaign,” Flynn tells Wood in the audio Wood posted on his Telegram channel late Saturday night. “I think it’s a disinformation campaign that the CIA created. That’s what I believe. Now, I don’t know that for a fact, but that’s what I think it is. I think it’s a disinformation campaign.”
Later in the conversation, Flynn adds: “I find it total nonsense. And I think it’s a disinformation campaign created by the left.”
Wood also posted screenshots of a text conversation he says he had with Flynn, in which the former national security adviser called people who believe QAnon conspiracies “kooks.”
For years, Flynn has leveraged his position within the QAnon mythos to boost his profile and profit from his hero status. He has appeared at QAnon events such as the Patriot Roundup conference in Dallas, where he said there was no reason why a Myanmar-style military coup could not happen in the U.S. Last year he posted a video of his family taking the QAnon oath—though they subsequently claimed it was merely a Flynn family motto.
But for those who have watched QAnon and Flynn closely, his disdain for the movement’s followers was clear—and just as clear was that he was willing to put up with them in order to profit from his position in the cult.
As well as selling QAnon merchandise, Flynn has spent the last 18 months on a never-ending cycle of lucrative speaking engagements and conference appearances across the country where he has spread QAnon-inspired conspiracies about election fraud.
Wood and Flynn had appeared at several conferences together, but their relationship fell apart last week when Wood accused Flynn of failing to speak up when Kyle Rittenhouse blasted Wood, who was briefly the teenager’s lawyer, for keeping him in prison for 87 days.
Wood continued his attack on Flynn on Sunday, by attempting to link him to right-wing bogeyman George Soros. Wood posted documents that showed a lawyer named Michael Flynn was granted power of attorney for one of the Hungarian billionaire’s organizations. Of course, it was a completely different Michael Flynn, but when Wood realized his error, rather than deleting the post in question, he simply claimed that the “deep state” had been trying to trick him into spreading false information.
Wood also promoted a Telegram channel linked to fugitive QAnon figure Timothy Holmseth, which claims Flynn works for the supposed pedophile cabal.
Flynn has not responded directly to the leaked audio, but on his Telegram channel, he posted a message from the influential “We the Media” channel that defends him against Wood’s attacks.
The Wood-Flynn feud has ripped the QAnon movement in two, forcing those involved to pick a side, and while many appear confused and unsure who to side with, others have decided that Wood’s attacks are evidence of his links to the “deep state.”
“This whole debacle has definitely made it clearer and clearer every day that Lin is most likely a black hat plant, meant to sow discord in the movement, giving ammo to the MSM to discredit,” one Telegram user wrote over the weekend.
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