Mother Jones; Olivier Douliery/Abaca/Sipa USA/AP

To hear Michael Flynn tell it, he belongs in the pantheon of great American martyrs alongside President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., leaders who spoke truth to power and paid for it with their lives. “I’m surprised they haven’t killed me,” the former Trump National Security Adviser says in his new eponymous film. “I’m surprised that they let me continue to live…we’ve gone from a physical assassination of a president of the United States to a character assassination of a national security adviser.”

Flynn: Deliver the Truth. Whatever the Cost. is a two-hour effort to rehabilitate the image of the three-star general who was once considered a brilliant military intelligence officer, but, since getting fired by President Obama in 2014 from his post as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has generated an endless string of scandalous headlines.

Among his greatest hits: Accepting $45,000 to attend a 2015 dinner in Moscow, where he sat next to Vladimir Putin; leading anti-Clinton chants of “Lock her up!” at the 2016 Republican National Convention; working as an unregistered foreign agent for the authoritarian Turkish government while advising Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. Then there was his guilty plea for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign, his pardon by Trump, and his attempt to persuade Trump to use the military to overturn the 2020 election results. It’s quite a record, and the reason why a press release for the film describes Flynn as “the most maligned American General in modern US history.”

It’s quite a record, and the reason why a press release for the film describes Flynn as “the most maligned American General in modern US history.”

After the 2020 election, Flynn managed to convert his pariah status into a political movement through his remarkably successful ReAwaken America tour, a series of conferences that resemble a tent revival, only with a mishmash of anti-vaxxers, self-proclaimed prophets, election deniers like MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell, QAnon adherents, and an assortment of Trump family members. Several thousand people showed up for the one I attended in Pennsylvania in 2022.

Authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat, told the AP in 2022 that Flynn is “one of the most dangerous individuals in America today.” She explained, “He is spearheading the attack on our democracy, which is coming from many quarters, and he is affiliated with many of these sectors, from the military to Christian nationalism to election denial to extremist groups. All of this comes together to present a very live threat. And he’s at the center.”

The ReAwaken tour seems to be winding down ahead of the election. For the past two months, Flynn has instead been traveling in a tour bus to churches and community centers in outposts like Branson, Missouri, and Fargo, North Dakota, to screen a film that promises to expose “the intricate web of political intrigue and the severe persecution General Flynn faced after exposing deep-seated corruption within the corridors of power.” His most devoted followers could even score $200 VIP tickets that offered photo ops with the general, plus a tote bag full of Flynn swag.

In early May, I drove to Charleston, West Virginia, to see how Flynn’s new film venture was faring without the extensive supporting cast of the ReAwaken America events. I also hoped it might reveal what’s next for a man Trump once considered as a possible running mate and who never seems far from the former president’s orbit.

When I arrived, Flynn’s tour bus was parked outside a West Virginia State University auditorium. The historically Black university seemed an incongruous venue given Flynn’s popularity among white nationalists, but then I learned that today its student body is almost 80 percent white. Inside, Flynn’s famous murder boards lined a corridor. Photos, news clippings, printouts of Trump tweets, dates of notable events, and many highlights from special counsel Robert Mueller‘s........

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