According to CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen, retired Gen. Michael Flynn's descent into a conspiracy-spouting crank who has embraced Christian nationalism had its genesis when he was ousted by former President Barack Obama as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency which led him to "go off the rails."
In an interview with CNN's Zachary Wolf, Bergen claimed Flynn then went down the conspiracy "rabbit hole," which in turn led him to be caught up in Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that could lead to federal criminal charges.
According to Bergen, "I think in Flynn’s case, he retired early from running the Defense Intelligence Agency as a three-star general, and that was in 2014. It seemed to have caused some sort of snap in him."
"His entire career, being in the military – when you’re in the military, there are norms, laws that prevent you from saying a bunch of stupid things publicly. I think the guardrails came off," he added. "He was very angered when he felt he was unfairly fired by the Obama administration."
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As for the conspiracy-mongering, he explained, "He was a perfectly normal officer until he was forced to retire early in 2014 from the Defense Intelligence Agency, and he increasingly embraced some wacky conspiracy theories at that time, and he seems to have gone on.
"When I spoke to Flynn at this conference in May, he said that the country was completely on the wrong track and that we’re all in deep trouble," Bergen added. "He volunteered these ideas to me. I think if people think that things are going really wrong, instead of examining why that might be the case, it’s easier to say, well, it’s part of a conspiracy led by the World Economic Forum, and put all the blame on whichever conspiracy view you have," he elaborated. "It’s a very old American idea, which is choose your ethnic group, choose your bogeyman. It’s easier to explain everything that’s not going right by saying that there’s this hidden force that is making our lives worse, rather than saying, well, what are the real issues that we need to address. That takes more mental effort."
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