Michael Flynn Totes Rifle And Jokes 'Maybe I'll Find Somebody in Washington, D.C.'

After being handed a semi-automatic rifle as a present at a rally earlier this month, Donald Trump ally and former general Michael Flynn joked "maybe I'll find somebody in Washington, D.C."

Flynn was speaking at the Church of Glad Tidings in Yuba, California on July 16. Jason Parker, vice president of rifle manufacturer Cobalt Kinetics, who also spoke at the event, was giving Flynn a gun as a gift.

"We were trying to come up with a rifle we thought was appropriate for a general, so we went with the old school woodland camouflage. Anyhow this is one of our top-quality guns and..." Parker said, before Flynn interjected: "Maybe I'll find someone in Washington D.C." Parker responded: "This one's Florida compliant."

Newsweek has contacted Flynn for comment.

On May 30, Flynn called for a Myanmar-style military coup in the United States, comments which he was widely criticized for. He later backtracked on the comments, blaming "twisted reporting."

He has consistently claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, despite there being no proof of this more than seven months after the vote took place.

Flynn is also considered one of the leading advocates of the QAnon movement, the conspiracy theory that believes there exists a cabal of Satanic pedophiles and that Trump will return as president. It led to Flynn being banned from social media platform Twitter in January 2021.

The former general is seen as a hero in the movement and told a conspiracy theorist podcast on June 24 that Trump needs to "light the world on fire" at his upcoming rallies.

Flynn was former president Donald Trump's national security adviser for the first 22 days of the Trump administration, but resigned following reports that he had lied to vice president Mike Pence regarding conversations with Russian ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak.

In December 2017, Flynn cut a deal with Special Council Robert Mueller to plead guilty to a felony count of "willfully and knowingly" to lying to the FBI about communication with the Russian diplomat and agreed to co-operate in Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Flynn had not yet been sentenced in connection with the investigation, but he was pardoned by Trump in November 2020, in the sunset period of his presidential tenure.

Flynn's pardoning prompted criticism from Democrats, including Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House intelligence committee, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.