Mike Flynn pleads the Fifth and refuses to answer January 6 committee’s questions

Former general is one of Donald Trump’s most visible far right advocates and has even suggested Myanmar-style coup in US

Mike Flynn at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando (REUTERS)

Former national security adviser Mike Flynn has joined a growing list of Donald Trump allies in refusing to answer questions from the select committee investigating the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Mr Flynn, who is held up by a hero among many on the Trumpist right and played a key role in the “stop the steal” movement after the 2020 election, cited the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination as he sat before the committee on Thursday. According to his lawyer, his legal team advised him to do so.

“General Michael Flynn appeared before the January 6th Committee today in compliance with their subpoena,” said his attorney in a statement, “and, on advice of counsel, exercised his 5th amendment right to decline to answer the Committee’s questions.

“This privilege protects all Americans, not just General Flynn. According to the Supreme Court, ‘no implication of guilt could be drawn from [one’s] invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege’ because ‘one of the basic functions of the [Fifth Amendment] privilege is to protect the innocent who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.’”

Mr Flynn last year tried to sue the 6 January committee to stop it from obtaining his phone records from the period leading up to the riot. His lawsuit was dismissed by a judge the day after he filed it.

Mr Flynn was infamously pardoned by Mr Trump after he admitted to lying to the FBI during the investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russian connections. Since he came under law enforcement investigation, he has become an icon for many conspiracy theorists, including a tendency among QAnon adherents who believe he is spearheading the fight against the “deep state” cabal of cannibalistic paedophiles.

After Mr Trump lost the 2020 election, Mr Flynn joined the loud and chaotic campaign to have the result overturned on baseless grounds of “fraud”. He went further than many Trump allies in suggesting that Mr Trump invoke martial law to seize voting machines and then oversee a re-run of the vote.

This culminated in a widely reported Oval Office meeting in December 2020 in which Mr Flynn and “kraken” attorney Sidney Powell clashed with the president’s more realistic aides over the two’s suggestions, which included installing the erratic Ms Powell as a special counsel assigned to investigate the non-existent “fraud” that she falsely claimed would explain Mr Biden’s victory.

Since the end of the Trump presidency, Mr Flynn has made a string of extreme comments in public, endorsing the idea of a Myanmar-style military coup in the US and joking about assassinating “somebody in Washington DC”.