Michael Flynn Sues Jan. 6 Committee After Claiming He Has 'Nothing to Hide'

Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser under Donald Trump, is suing the House Select committee investigating the January 6 attack in an attempt to block efforts to obtain his phone records after previously stating he doesn't have "anything to hide."

Flynn says that the subpoena filed against him by the panel looking into the insurrection at the Capitol is violating his free speech and his rights against self-incrimination.

The suit, filed on Tuesday and obtained by The New York Times, states Flynn has raised "significant Constitutional and practical concerns" about whether his compliance with the subpoena issued against him would violate his rights under the 5th Amendment to not be a witness against himself due to an active criminal investigation.

"Without intervention by this Court, General Flynn faces the harm of being irreparably and illegally coerced to produce information and testimony in violation of the law and his constitutional rights," the lawsuit says.

The former Army general, who is now considered a hero in the radical QAnon movement, has become one of the more extreme voices to have pushed the widely discredited claim that Trump lost the election due to widespread voter fraud, including advocating for martial law to overturn the results.

Flynn, who was pardoned by Trump after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia amid the Mueller investigation, has cited fears of inadvertently incriminating himself despite previously stating he has nothing to hide with regards to the January 6 attack and would be willing to cooperate.

Speaking to Fox News' Tucker Carlson on November 12, Flynn said the January 6 investigation, which has seen a number of Trump allies subpoenaed, was an "assault on freedom of speech, our ability to peaceably protest [and] our desire to seek the truth."

Flynn said: "We're going to respond to the requests. I don't have anything to hide, there's nothing, there's nothing there. What we're facing is a clear assault on our basic rights and principally, our freedom to speak freely in this country and to peacefully protest for things that we believe are false or fraudulent."

The lawsuit, filed in Flynn's home state of Florida, states in the run-up to January 6 that Flynn was a private citizen who "sincerely held concerns about the integrity" of the 2020 elections.

"It is not a crime to hold such beliefs, regardless of whether they are correct or mistaken, to discuss them with others, to associate with those who share the same belief, or to ask the government to address such political concerns," the suit states.

The House Select Committee is seeking materials from Flynn after he reportedly attended a meeting in the Oval Office on December 18, 2020, in which there allegedly were discussions of "seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers" over the false belief that the last election was "tainted."

The day before the meeting, Flynn also gave an interview on Newsmax TV where he talked about seizing voting machines, discussed unsubstantiated claims of foreign influence in the last election, and the "purported precedent for deploying military troops and declaring martial law to 'rerun' the election."

The House Select Committee has been contacted for comment.