WASHINGTON—When retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn joined President Donald Trump’s campaign, he electrified audiences with his fury at the Washington national security establishment and jettisoned military decorum, describing Islam as a cancer and leading chants for Democratic rival Hillary Clinton to be locked up.

The former Defense Intelligence Agency director’s brassy behavior fit seamlessly with Mr. Trump’s unorthodox campaign and it paid off, ultimately vaulting him into the White House as national security adviser.

But the speed of Mr. Flynn’s ascent was matched by the swiftness of his undoing. On Friday, he admitted to lying to federal agents about two phone calls in December 2016 with then Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak and cut a plea deal with special counsel Robert Mueller that could include prison time. He had served just 23 days on the job in the West Wing before being forced to resign in February amid allegations he had also lied to Vice President Mike Pence.

“I recognize that the actions I acknowledged in court today were wrong, and, through my faith in God, I am working to set things right,” Mr. Flynn said in a statement Friday.

Mr. Flynn speaking during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on July 18, 2016. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News

His is a rare story of rising and falling in Washington—only to rise higher and fall harder.


For more than three decades in the U.S. Army, he built a decorated career as an intelligence officer and ultimately took over the Pentagon’s military intelligence operation. While serving as DIA director, he fell out with his superiors in the Obama administration, in part for pushing a harder line on the U.S.’s approach to Afghanistan and the evolving al Qaeda threat. He eventually was forced out and into early retirement in 2014.

The following year, Mr. Trump’s unlikely campaign became his ticket to redemption.

The president met Mr. Flynn shortly after launching his campaign in June 2015. Mr. Trump became enamored with the military general after watching him on Fox News, and later that summer, the then-candidate’s team called Mr. Flynn to bring him in for a meeting, the former national security adviser said in a Washington Post interview last year.

During their first meeting, Messrs. Trump and Flynn were joined by the candidate’s son, Eric, and the rest of Mr. Trump’s family quickly took a liking to Mr. Flynn. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law who is now a senior White House adviser, pushed for Mr. Flynn to join the campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, would later be among the early backers of naming him national security adviser.


Harboring grudges against the Obama administration, Mr. Flynn took to the campaign trail and railed at the U.S. national security apparatus. He sharpened some of the arguments he made during his Pentagon days, injecting an extra measure of emotion and political vitriol that made them resonate with Mr. Trump’s base. His early campaign-trail presence also gave Mr. Trump the foreign policy and national security bona fides the New York real-estate developer lacked.

Mr. Flynn also served as an adviser on national security issues. After Mr. Trump effectively clinched the Republican nomination, Mr. Flynn was considered by the campaign as a potential running mate and was formally vetted for the job. Ultimately Mr. Trump instead chose Mr. Pence, then the governor of Indiana.

Flynn joined the crowd in “lock her up” chants.

Mr. Flynn’s involvement with the Trump campaign reached its public climax at the Republican convention in Cleveland in July 2016. There he delivered a fiery speech calling for Mrs. Clinton to be jailed for what he called her careless use of a private email server as secretary of state, and egging on the crowd’s chants of “Lock her up!”

“If I—a guy who knows this business—if I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today,” he said. “Lock her up, that’s right,” he added as the crowd chanted.


As Mr. Flynn left a federal courthouse Friday, a crowd of protesters outside began chanting: “Lock him up!”

—Nancy A. Youssef, Michael R. Gordon and Michael C. Bender contributed to this article.