General Flynn, An Open Letter to President Biden

Dear Mr. President:

America is still in shock from that moment on Saturday that an assassin’s bullet wounded former President Donald Trump during his presidential campaign rally. Only by the grace of God was his life spared.

Within hours of that near-tragedy, you twice spoke to the nation and declared that political violence was “one reason we have to unite this country.” Those are laudable sentiments, but Mr. President, a few words cannot and will not undo your statements and actions over the past three and a half years that have not united Americans, but have divided us. You have not just criticized, but demonized your opponent and the millions of Americans who support him.

Americans remember that on September 1, 2022, you launched an all-out rhetorical attack against millions of citizens who support President Trump. In front of a blood-red background, and flanked by U.S. Marines as visual enforcers, you shouted that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” You shouted that “MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.”

In your November 3, 2022 speech just before the 2022 midterm elections, you again sought to divide the American people, accusing Republicans of fueling a “dangerous rise in political violence and voter intimidation over the past two years.” You claimed that “democracy is on the ballot,” as if the millions of Americans who returned control of the House of Representatives to Republicans the next week opposed democracy. Your State of the Union speech was even worse.

You have made this kind of inflammatory rhetoric a centerpiece of your campaign, and just days before the assassination attempt, you stated that “It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”

I commend you for your decision finally to provide Secret Service protection for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in his campaign for President in the aftermath of the shooting Saturday. I had called for this protection to be given last August. The nation has already suffered through the assassination of Mr. Kennedy’s father and uncle. It was unconscionable that Mr. Kennedy has not been protected until now. Yet, this was a good first step.

Mr. President, your call for unity is laudable. And, I take you at your word. However, if you really wish to “unite this country,” there are several meaningful policy actions you can take to prove it. I suggest you end your verbal and governmental assault on your political opponents by taking the following steps.

1. Yesterday, the federal district court judge presiding over the trial of Donald Trump in Florida dismissed that indictment because “Special Counsel” Jack Smith had no lawful authority to act as a prosecutor. You could undo some of the damage done by his appointment by your Attorney General, by admitting his appointment was unlawful and ordering General Garland to terminate it, as well as both federal prosecutions against President Trump. The outcome of the 2024 Presidential election should be decided at the ballot box, not in a criminal court.
2. I urge you to order your Department of Justice to announce publicly that it will not pursue its plan to resist, but rather will follow, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Fischer v. United States, and stop using the Sarbanes-Oxley anti-shredding laws against January 6 protestors. Your Administration has claimed that the protest that day was an insurrection, but not a single American was charged with the federal crime of insurrection. Rather, that Department instead misused the Sarbanes-Oxley anti-document-shredding law to impose its longer prison terms on January 6 protestors, and this abuse must end.
3. I ask you to order your Attorney General, Merrick Garland, to stop using FACE Act prosecutions to imprison opponents of abortion who peacefully pray and protest outside abortion mills. Also, it would help end the climate of fear you have created if you would order the FBI to end raids on the homes of political protestors.
4. I ask you to call off your political allies like Project 65 that literally is seeking to destroy the ability of America’s conservative Republican attorneys to make a living at their chosen profession because you disagree with their effort to ensure we have free and fair elections. Let legal giants like John Eastman and other attorneys who have advised President Trump go back to practicing law, rather than spending their life savings on legal fees to defend their right to make arguments in court that you wish to silence.
5. I urge you to stop using the power of government to threaten social media companies into suppressing speech you find critical of your policies. End your Censorship Enterprise once and for all. Let all Americans freely express themselves on social media and elsewhere. You cannot unite a country while censoring the speech of half of its people.
6. Many of your departments and agencies routinely exceeded their statutory authority. I ask you to order the ATF to withdraw its regulation defining anyone who sells or repairs even one firearm for profit to be “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms. This regulation risks ensnaring those who repair one gun for a friend, or who buy or sell one or two firearms, in a web of draconian federal regulation. This regulation has already been enjoined by a federal judge, but it needs to be withdrawn completely.
7. I urge you to order Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona to withdraw regulations directing schools to facilitate children engaging in gender transition, while keeping this information secret from parents. It is difficult to unite a nation while undermining the family by pitting children against their parents.
8. Please repeal all your Administration’s actions to throw open our borders and burden America’s taxpayers with the costs of millions of those you once correctly described as “illegal immigrants.” A good first step could be to drop your suit against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for placing barriers in the Rio Grande, doing the job you and your Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas have refused to do.
9. This would be the time to cancel all DEI directives. Stop dividing Americans by sex, skin color, and ethnicity. Stop federal agencies from discriminating based on pigmentation instead of rewarding merit and performance.
10. I urge you to withdraw Executive Order 14019, which requires each federal agency to work to register voters to tilt the election in your favor.

Finally, returning to the topic of the near-assassination of former President Trump last Saturday, the American People do not trust an investigation of security failures by the Department of Homeland security being conducted by the FBI and your Justice Department. I suggest that you instead appoint a panel of three state attorneys general, two of whom should be Republicans, and grant them full authority to investigate the events of that day.

Mr. President, you cannot unite a country when you have declared war upon half of its citizens, weaponizing your government to silence and imprison your political opponents. In brief, I urge you to demilitarize not just your rhetoric, but also your policies. Should you continue these divisive policies, paradoxically, you will accomplish the unification of Americans — but it will be Americans unifying in opposition to both you and your Administration.

Respectfully,

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (U.S. Army, ret.)