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Former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland accused the FBI of conducting a “setup” against herself and former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn in an attempt to target President Trump during their Russian collusion investigation.
“[Flynn] was treated the same way I was treated, which is [being] ambushed by the FBI, try to trick us into committing crimes we had no intentions of committing, trying to charge us with perjury crimes and, in Flynn’s case, they tried to use his son as blackmail against him to plead guilty for a crime he didn’t commit,” McFarland told “America’s Newsroom.”
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McFarland explained how the FBI used the same tactics against her White House boss as she experienced.
“They come unannounced, in [Flynn’s] case, to the White House, in my case, my house. They didn’t warn me about anything. The first thing that comes out of my mouth was ‘Do I need a lawyer for anything? Am I under some kind of investigation?’” McFarland said.
McFarland said that the FBI agents told her that the purpose of the interview was to get information about possible links to Russian meddling in the U.S. election. McFarland said that though she complied with the interview because she had an interest in Russian collusion, she didn’t realize at the time that she was part of a “setup.”
McFarland also referenced former FBI Director Jim Comey admitting in an interview with MSNBC in 2017 that he ignored protocol by sending agents to the White House to interview Flynn.
“In General Flynn’s case, they did the same thing. They lulled him into thinking ‘Well, you’re not a subject, you’re not somebody under investigation. The whole time, they were targeting him, they were targeting me, and they were really targeting President Trump,” McFarland said.
“They set Flynn up, they set me up, they set other people up, but the real goal for them was to go after President Trump. We were collateral damage. They didn’t care about whose lives they ruined. They wanted to go after President Trump.”
McFarland reacted to Judge Emmet Sullivan’s decision to allow legal experts and other outside parties to oppose the Justice Department’s motion to drop the case against Flynn.
“I just wish the best for General Flynn and his family and I sure hope they can move on soon and get on with their lives,” McFarland said.
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Although Sullivan did not directly address the Justice Department’s motion to drop the charge against Flynn, in his order Sullivan announced he would set a schedule for outside parties to present arguments about the government’s request to dismiss the case.
Although Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in 2017, the Justice Department argued last week that the FBI had an insufficient basis to question Flynn in the first place and that statements he made during the interview were not material to the broader counterintelligence investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Fox News’ Julia Musto contributed to this report.
