While some will view the national security adviser’s departure as a peace offering from Trump, others see a president who remains ‘utterly ignorant’

Disgrace does profound things to public figures. It can breed a resentment that matures into something self-destructive. In Michael Flynn’s case, it made his downfall as Donald Trump’s national security adviser appear in retrospect, to have been inevitable.

Yet Flynn’s resignation late on Monday night does not settle the volatility within the Trump administration over national security.

The White House offers a straightforward explanation for Flynn’s departure: he misrepresented phone conversations with the Russian ambassador about sanctions to Trump’s inner circle, including the vice-president, Mike Pence. But the central issue of perceived Russian leverage over Donald Trump himself remains.

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That unresolved issue helps explain a divide within the US intelligence community that early signs suggest is likely to persist. This split has become apparent through background conversations with current and former intelligence officials, though it is difficult to tell how entrenched it is.

One camp within the intelligence agencies will be inclined to view Flynn’s exodus as a peace offering from Trump. Trump’s actual intentions here matter less than the impressionistic picture intelligence officials can take away from it.

This faction – which includes operations officers – is not naturally inclined to dislike Trump, and tends to see the threat of terrorism in urgent and very broad terms. It wants a more aggressive posture than Barack Obama’s drone strikes and counter-terrorism raids. But it has been disturbed by Trump’s apparent debt to Russia, his casual disrespect of the intelligence agencies and his chaotic internal decision-making process.

Flynn was what one US intelligence official on Tuesday morning called a “hot lead lightning rod” within intelligence circles.

By removing Flynn, this faction can accept a detente with Trump, who wants to cultivate the agencies. Overshadowed in Trump’s quasi-campaign rally at the agency’s Langley headquarters the day after his inauguration was the president’s offer of “so much backing” to the CIA in counter-terrorism.

But another faction, which is particularly evident amongst intelligence analysts, considers Flynn merely a reflection of Trump. Some in this camp consider Russian interference in the election to be the central fact of the Trump presidency. Former officials worry about the survivial of their colleagues as they face a White House that US security officials believe is obsessed with loyalty to Trump.

This faction believes Trump is reckless, beholden to Russia, and unlikely to change. Former officials believe it must either withstand Trump’s bellicose impulses or attempt to resist them. They consider Flynn’s resignation to be neither a gesture of reconciliation nor a move that will mollify them.

“Firing Flynn still leaves Trump utterly ignorant of and belligerent about the fact-based intelligence community,” said Glenn Carle, a retired CIA officer.

“Most intelligence officers are not fools or grovelers. One fool, or worse, is now gone from the White House. Trump, the man in charge, still bats his eyes at Putin, and smirks and glowers at the intelligence community. Of course, the intelligence community should not change its disdain for incompetence, distrust of lying, and hostility to malevolence.”

During the 24 days Flynn served as national security adviser, Trump’s political and policy aides Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, along with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were said to be the true inner circle, with Flynn on the outside.

Yet in significant ways, Trump had already given Flynn what he desired most – a triumphant comeback.

Flynn, a retired three-star army general, is given enormous credit for overhauling the elite joint special operations command into a professional intelligence operation. It led to his elevation to run the Defense Intelligence Agency, which Flynn also attempted to reinvent, dwelling in public speeches on its heavy presence in Washington and moribund posture overseas. Yet Flynn was unsuccessful, and, in 2014, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, fired him.

Those who know Flynn personally tend not to talk about what others consider his public transformation into a creature of grievance, willing to speak before Moscow audiences and lead “Lock Her Up” chants against Hillary Clinton.

The public downfall led to his rise, particularly as a guest on Fox News, as a martyr of what the right considered Barack Obama’s insufficient approach to counterterrorism. Congressional Republicans were eager to have a man with stars on his shoulders voice that criticism, and Flynn quickly found an audience.

Flynn blamed Clapper and the intelligence leadership for engineering his downfall, and found common cause with Trump, whose rise was met with disdain in Washington security circles.

When Trump won, Flynn’s detractors had an epic comeuppance. Clapper promptly resigned, and all the other intelligence chiefs who had dismissed Flynn, were shown to be on the wrong side of the election. It became important for both Trump and Flynn’s sense of legitimacy for them to reject assessments of Kremlin interference, even as Flynn traveled to Russia and, fatefully, contacted the Russian ambassador as the outgoing Obama administration applied new sanctions.

Flynn’s rapid resignation will be seen across Washington security circles as a second public disgrace. Emboldened congressional Democrats, who felt a wind at their backs on Tuesday morning, may seek to exploit it. Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, which is conducting an inquiry into Trump’s Russia ties, is signaling that he wants Flynn to testify. “The American people deserve to know at whose direction Gen Flynn was acting when he made these calls, and why the White House waited until these reports were public to take action,” Warner said.

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But Flynn did not sound bitter notes toward Trump. In his resignation letter, he thanked Trump for “personal loyalty” and echoed Trump’s branding, even ending with the “Make America Great Again” slogan.



Should Trump not look after Flynn in his post-White House career, it is possible Flynn will break from Trump. But Trump’s next moves toward the intelligence community will herald much more for the future course of US foreign and security policies, and whether the relationship proves reconcilable. One of the rumored replacements for Flynn is the former CIA director and respected army general David Petraeus, a man far more amenable to the intelligence agencies than Flynn.

While it may be a superficial similarity, Petraeus is another man seeking a comeback from public disgrace.

