Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn would have been subjected to political persecution under a Biden administration if President Donald Trump hadn't pardoned him, K.T. McFarland, who served under Flynn as deputy adviser, said Friday.
"I think they were planning to persecute Flynn even further," McFarland said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "That's one of the reasons they were stringing it on and on. They weren't going to let him out of the crosshairs. It was essential that the president pardoned him (and) let the nightmare be over."
Trump's pardon came as a federal judge was considering whether to grant a request from the Department of Justice to dismiss the case against the retired lieutenant general, even though he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with a Russian ambassador.
"He shouldn't have been charged with anything in the first place," McFarland said, adding that Flynn only entered the guilty plea because "they blackmailed him and said 'we'll get your son if you don't do this.'"
McFarland on Friday also said she agrees with Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe's warnings to Biden's administration to acknowledge China is the nation's greatest national security threat.
"The timeline has been accelerated," she said. "China makes no bones about it. They are completely open about their intention to dominate the world at the United States's expense, rewrite the order of the rules of the world."
She said China would try to seize power economically through trade wars and through their own land and maritime economic trade routes.
"The second way they'll do it is through cyber technology," McFarland said, and "finally through the internet infrastructure, the 5G internet of the future, which they'll dominate and they will control and they're in charge of everything ... that's not even to mention the military build-up they're doing."
She pointed out that a few years ago the Chinese told the Obama administration that they were building up islands in the South China Sea, but had no intention of militarizing them.
"What happens? They militarized them," she said. "The incoming Biden administration, a lot of the same people don't get it. They are still living in a world where well, if you have some meetings, do a little diplomacy and everything will work out."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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