Michael Flynn paints a dark picture of America during speech in Venice

Michael Flynn offered a dark view of the state of the nation during a speech to GOP activists in Southwest Florida Wednesday, saying America is “in the valley of the shadow of death” and declaring “we’re at war right here at home.”

Former President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Flynn was deeply involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. An infamous meeting Flynn attended at the White House in late 2020 where Trump supporters discussed having the military seize voting machines has caught the attention of prosecutors conducting two different investigations into Trump's efforts to fight the election results.

Flynn has been accused of undermining American democracy, and was described in a recent joint investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series "Frontline" as a leading Christian Nationalist who "spreads baseless conspiracy theories."

He briefly mulled the Christian Nationalist label Wednesday, but didn't discuss the two grand jury probes during his speech, or a subsequent question-and-answer session with an audience of 200 GOP activists in Venice, other than to criticize charges brought against Trump in one of the investigations.

Instead, Flynn’s remarks to the Republican Club of South Sarasota County touched on everything from abolishing the U.S. Department of Education to criticizing GOP presidential candidates he described as running “kamikaze” campaigns against Trump.

Flynn says America in "valley of shadow of death"

The former president and current frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination famously described a landscape of “American carnage” in his first inaugural address, and Flynn used similarly stark terms Wednesday.

Standing on a stage at the Venice Community Center with his feet halfway over the edge, he told the audience that he used to regularly stand like that during speeches to illustrate his belief that America is “almost over the edge,” but now believes the country has gone over.

More: Michael Flynn and Proud Boy join Sarasota GOP executive committee in far right shift

“America isn’t halfway over the edge, we are in the valley of the shadow of death,” he said.

“And you know it, don’t you?” he added, the audience murmuring in agreement.

Earlier, he told the crowd: “We’re at war right here at home and it’s our own government.”

“The biggest battle of my life was against my own government,” he added.

Flynn briefly served in Trump’s administration before resigning and pleading guilty to lying to the FBI over his contacts with the Russian ambassador. He was pardoned by Trump in the waning days of his administration and now is suing the government for malicious prosecution.

“I’m in a knife fight with the Department of Justice right now,” Flynn told the audience, later telling the Herald-Tribune he was referring to his lawsuit.

Dec. 18, 2020 meeting under scrutiny

Flynn has remained a Trump ally, recently attending a fundraising dinner in Fort Myers for the Lee County GOP that was headlined by the former president. He worked with a group of Trump supporters to overturn the 2020 election.

CNN reported last week that Special Counsel Jack Smith is focusing on a meeting Flynn had in the White House with Trump and others, including former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and attorney Sydney Powell, on Dec. 18, 2020.

A proposed executive order discussed at the meeting, which was drafted by Trump’s allies, instructed the Department of Defense to seize voting machines and appointed a special counsel to investigate election fraud claims, with Powell proposed as the special counsel.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone told congressional investigators for The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol that he was alarmed by the proposed executive order and strongly clashed with Flynn, Byrne and Powell during the Dec. 18 meeting. Flynn and Byrne are both Sarasota County residents.

“To have the federal government seize voting machines, it’s a terrible idea,” Cipollone said. “That’s not how we do things in the United States. There’s no legal authority to do that."

The meeting was loud and profane.

Former White House attorney Eric Herschmann said there was screaming involved, according to a video of his testimony to the committee. He said Flynn called him a “quitter.”

Flynn showed a diagram — which Herschmann deemed "nuts" — purportedly showing unfounded if not fantastical allegations of vote machine tampering by Hugo Chavez connections in Venezuela.

Approached by a Herald-Tribune reporter after his speech Wednesday, Flynn agreed to answer questions and spoke briefly about his lawsuit but walked off as he was being asked about Smith’s investigation, heading over to take a picture with a group holding up a large sign promoting Trump’s campaign that declared: “Guard the Vote”

Smith is overseeing a sprawling grand jury probe into Trump’s actions. The investigation touches on Trump's response to the 2020 election, the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and the former president’s handling of classified documents.

Smith recently charged Trump with 37 felony counts related to allegedly mishandling classified documents. Other aspects of the probe are continuing.

Flynn criticized the charges against Trump during his remarks.

“Why give him 37 felony counts? So at least maybe they’ll get one,” Flynn said. “This is not normal folks.”

In addition to Smith’s investigation, a grand jury in Georgia is probing whether Trump tried to illegally influence the election results in that state. Flynn was forced by a Florida judge to testify in December before the special grand jury hearing evidence in the Georgia case.

Flynn: "We must win the country back"

The Georgia prosecutor's petition seeking Flynn’s testimony also mentioned his participation in the White House meeting on December 18, 2020. And the petition cited a Newsmax interview of Flynn in which he said Trump could put military “capabilities” in swing states and “basically re-run an election in each of those states.”

An influential figure in far-right politics, Flynn doesn't seem bothered by the Christian Nationalist label.

"People say you're a a Christian Nationalist," he said Wednesday. "I'm like, OK, the exact opposite of that is a Globalist... that doesn't believe in God. So it's like, you know, if you want to get into semantics with me, please, I love it."

Flynn bought a home in Florida in 2021 shortly after he was pardoned by Trump. He lives in Englewood in southern Sarasota County and has become increasingly active at the local level, speaking out about school board races and joining the Republican Party of Sarasota County’s executive committee.

Far-right forces have exerted strong influence on the GOP in recent years, including in Sarasota County and particularly in the southern part of the county. James Hoel, a member of the Proud Boys extremist group, joined the Sarasota GOP executive committee at the same time as Flynn, and holds in a leadership position in the Republican Club of South Sarasota County.

Yet Flynn was unsuccessful last year in toppling Sarasota GOP Chair Jack Brill, who defeated a Flynn-backed challenger.

“We must win this country back in 2024,” Flynn said Wednesday. “We must, and it does start locally.”

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Michael Flynn dodges question on Special Counsel Jack Smith's probe