Michael Flynn is cashing in by selling conspiracy fantasies to QAnon kooks: report

On Saturday, The New York Timesprofiled former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's embrace of the far-right conspiracy theory realm — and how he is cashing in on it.

Flynn, who was pardoned by former President Donald Trump after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI in the Russia investigation, has subsequently embedded himself in the QAnon movement, which believes Trump is waging a secret war against a cabal of Satan-worshipping cannibal child sex traffickers controlling the U.S. government — and he has also suggested Trump could use "military capabilities" to prevent the transfer of power.

"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," wrote Matthew Rosenberg. "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."

As Flynn ingratiates himself to and leads this movement, said the report, he is also profiting off it — driven by his need to settle legal debts from the federal prosecution.

"His plan for paying those bills appears to rely on leveraging his public persona into cold, hard cash," said the report. "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," said the report. "The tenor of Digital Soldiers is unmistakably QAnon ... 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."

You can read more here.