Former national security adviser Michael Flynn over the weekend appeared to suggest that a military coup similar to the one that deposed Myanmar’s government “should happen” in the United States, CNN reports.
While speaking at an event in Dallas on Sunday that included many well-known supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, Flynn was asked by an audience member during a question and answer session “why what happened in Myanmar can’t happen here?”
Flynn responded, “No reason. I mean, it should happen here.”
He also claimed that former President Donald Trump “won” the 2020 presidential election.
Trump “won the popular vote, and he won the Electoral College vote,” Flynn said.
Myanmar’s military overthrew the country’s democratically-elected leaders on February 1, imprisoning them and claiming voter fraud. Since this occurred, at least 800 citizens have died and thousands arrested during protests.
Some Trump supporters who believe the former president’s claims about election fraud have cited Myanmar as an example for how the U.S. military should have behaved. Media Matters reports that users on far-right message boards have praised the coup and asked when a similar event will happen in America.
Flynn previously signaled his support for the QAnon conspiracy theory last summer when he posted a video to Twitter that contained several QAnon slogans. His account was subsequently banned when Twitter removed many accounts that had promoted the conspiracy theory.
“The accounts have been suspended in line with our policy on Coordinated Harmful Activity,” a spokesperson for Twitter told NBC News in January.
“We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm, and given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content.”
More recently, Flynn appeared to distance himself from the QAnon movement, saying in an interview that “what I tell people to do is look at the people that are involved. Look at the values that they espouse and let’s move along.”
Source: Newmax
