Reminder: Flynn chanted “lock her up” at the RNC, said “If I did a tenth, a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail.” pic.twitter.com/AQY79rlzhm
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 1, 2017
Democratic lawmakers on Friday reacted to the news that former national security adviser Michael Flynn had been charged with lying to the FBI by resurfacing his past “lock her up” comments about former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Crowds supporting then-candidate Donald Trump repeatedly broke into chants of “lock her up” during the 2016 campaign as the FBI investigated Clinton over her use of a private email server as secretary of State. Flynn joined in one of those chants at the Republican National Convention in July of last year.
“If I did a tenth a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail,” Flynn said during the Cleveland convention.
Democratic lawmakers resurfaced these comments on Friday after the news that special counsel Robert Mueller had charged Flynn broke.
Clinton’s former running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), also reacted to the news, saying Flynn will get “the benefit of a fair legal process” he was willing to deny her.
{mosads}
“He would not give the benefit of a fair legal process to anybody else but he gets the benefit of fair legal process,” Kaine said, according to an NBC News reporter.
Other Democrats reacted to the news without specifically referencing Flynn’s past remarks.
“Whether Flynn delayed critical anti-ISIL coalition military operations or sought to undermine U.S. sanctions against Russian adversaries, the American people deserve a full and transparent accounting of his actions to understand why he recklessly lied to Federal law enforcement agents conducting a criminal investigation,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) retweeted an ABC News report about the special counsel charges against Flynn, and added a line that suggested he thinks Trump will be impeached.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said on Friday that Flynn’s guilty plea was a signal that the House Judiciary Committee had more than enough evidence to probe the president for obstruction of justice.
“There is now more than enough evidence to form the basis of a congressional investigation into the President’s obstruction of justice—and it is long past time that the House Committee on the Judiciary engage on this matter. I urge Chairman Goodlatte to finally begin our oversight work without delay,” Nadler said in a statement.
Flynn pleaded guilty to “willfully and knowingly” making “false, fictitious and fraudulent statements” to the FBI about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador.
The special counsel said Flynn lied when he told the FBI he did not ask then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to “refrain from escalating the situation” in response to sanctions that then-President Obama had levied.
Mueller also says Flynn lied when he said he did not ask the ambassador to either delay or defeat a related United Nations Security Council vote.
-Updated 1:35 p.m.