Why did the Deep State throw caution to the winds in an desperate effort to frame Donald Trump for alleged collusion with Russia–and failing that, to entrap him in an obstruction of justice case? There are a lot of reasons for the Establishment to hate Donald Trump, but one of them stands out. During the campaign, Donald Trump denounced the Obama administration for having created ISIS. That claim drew ridicule from the mainstream media, but it is entirely correct. Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, Trump’s campaign adviser, was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 when the DIA blew the whistle on CIA backing for Sunni Islamists fighting the Assad regime during the then-raging Syrian civil war. As my friend Michael Ledeen wrote at PJ Media on March 26, the Mueller investigation was all about Flynn.

President Trump should pardon Gen. Flynn right now and summon him back to Washington. Mueller forced Flynn to plead guilty to an invented charge of lying to FBI agents, even though the FBI agents who interviewed him about Russian contacts said that they thought he was telling the truth. Now that the Mueller investigation has come up with nothing, the frame-up of Gen. Flynn appears all the more heinous. The Deep State feared Mike Flynn, with good reason. Trump should reappoint him to a top job, and really terrify his opponents.

Flynn’s Defense Intelligence Agency produced a now-notorious 2012 report warning that CIA backing for Sunni rebels fighting Assad would lead to the rise of a new Caliphate movement, namely ISIS. The Obama administration threw its support behind the “Arab Spring” rebellion in Syria, ignoring the fact that Islamist terrorists led the opposition to Assad. This was reported exhaustively in specialist media, for example, Brad Hoff’s July 2016 essay in Foreign Policy Journal: Flynn humiliated the bungling CIA and exposed the incompetence and deception of the Obama administration, and got fired for it.

If the proper authorities turn over the CIA’s rock and examine its underside, the result will be the exposure of an intelligence failure of galactic proportions. The CIA channeled Saudi money into al-Qaeda fronts in Syria and helped move a large part of the late Col. Qaddafi’s massive arsenal to Syria. The jihadists backed by the CIA eventually formed a good deal of ISIS. Heads would roll at CIA. And when I say “proper authorities,” I mean Gen. Flynn in his capacity as National Security Adviser, a job in which he lasted a month before the Deep State set him up and persuaded President Trump to fire him.

Before that, candidate Trump had already run with Flynn’s story. He had this to say about ISIS on the Hugh Hewitt show on Aug. 11, 2016:

HH: I’ve got two more questions. Last night, you said the President was the founder of ISIS. I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace. DT: No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton. HH: But he’s not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He’s trying to kill them. DT: I don’t care. He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay? HH: Well, that, you know, I have a saying, Donald Trump, the mnemonic device I use is Every Liberal Really Seems So, So Sad. E is for Egypt, L is for Libya, S is for Syria, R is for Russia reset. They screwed everything up. You don’t get any argument from me. But by using the term founder, they’re hitting with you on this again. Mistake? DT: No, it’s no mistake. Everyone’s liking it. I think they’re liking it. I give him the most valuable player award. And I give it to him, and I give it to, I gave the co-founder to Hillary. I don’t know if you heard that. HH: I did. I did. I played it. DT: I gave her the co-founder. HH: I know what you’re arguing… DT: You’re not, and let me ask you, do you not like that? HH: I don’t. I think I would say they created, they lost the peace. They created the Libyan vacuum, they created the vacuum into which ISIS came, but they didn’t create ISIS. That’s what I would say. DT: Well, I disagree. HH: All right, that’s okay. DT: I mean, with his bad policies, that’s why ISIS came about. HH: That’s… DT: If he would have done things properly, you wouldn’t have had ISIS. HH: That’s true. DT: Therefore, he was the founder of ISIS.

I’m trying to imagine what went on inside the mind of James Clapper as he read the transcript of Trump’s interview. As Clapper knows, Trump was exactly correct, although Trump didn’t quite spell out how the Obama administration had aided the formation of ISIS. For that he needs Flynn. Flynn was the only head of a major U.S. intelligence agency who knew just how badly the CIA had bungled, who had done what to whom, and where the bodies were buried. He was the broom with which Trump proposed to clean house. I am convinced that the Deep State put the finger on Flynn and tried to frame Trump, in the belief that the best defense is a good offense.

It’s time to seize the offensive from the Deep State and hold it accountable for its incompetence and its abuses of power, and that means a pardon for Mike Flynn.