In 2021, retired Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Donald J. Trump’s first nationwide safety adviser, turned chairman of a 75-year-old nonprofit group — the type of small charity the place chairmen usually work at no cost.
However Mr. Flynn obtained a wage of $40,000, for working two hours per week.
The subsequent 12 months, he obtained a elevate: $60,000, for 2 hours.
Mr. Flynn’s charity additionally paid one in all his brothers, two of his sisters, his niece and his sister-in-law. By the tip of its second 12 months, his nonprofit group, America’s Future Inc., was working within the purple, burning by reserves — and nonetheless paying $518,000, or 29 p.c of its funds, to Flynns.
Since leaving the Trump administration beneath an moral cloud, Michael Flynn has transformed his Trump-world celeb right into a profitable and sprawling household enterprise. He and his kin have marketed the retired basic as a martyr, elevating a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} for a legal-defense fund after which pocketing leftover cash. By way of a community of nonprofit and for-profit ventures, they’ve offered far-right conspiracy theories, starting from lies in regards to the 2020 election to warnings, embraced by followers of QAnon, about cabals of pedophiles and youngster traffickers.
“That is one which goes as much as the best ranges of firms, as much as the best ranges of the federal government,” Mr. Flynn stated not too long ago at a gathering hosted by America’s Future in Kent, Ohio. “Those that and that you simply assume you respect.”
A New York Instances investigation discovered Flynn relations had made at the least $2.2 million monetizing Michael Flynn’s right-wing stardom in recent times, with greater than half of that going to Mr. Flynn straight. That complete consists of a number of funds not beforehand reported, however it’s nonetheless a low estimate, since not all monetary data are public. The Instances’s reporting additionally raised questions on whether or not America’s Future had correctly disclosed its funds to Mr. Flynn’s kin.
Lots of Mr. Trump’s closest allies have tried to show political fame into non-public earnings, hawking every little thing from T-shirts to espresso beans to podcasts. Apart from Mr. Trump himself, few have carried out it on the size of Mr. Flynn.
Mr. Flynn’s reinvention might result in resurrection: Within the final 12 months, Mr. Trump has alluded a number of instances to his intention to carry the retired basic again into his administration ought to Mr. Trump win the White Home in November.
Mr. Flynn and his kin didn’t reply on to questions. A lawyer for Mr. Flynn, Jesse Binnall, stated in an interview that the Flynns had earned their funds from America’s Future and different teams and that any errors of their filings had been unintentional.
“Normal Flynn’s dedication to the reason for American freedom is steadfast and resolute, particularly because it pertains to the liberty of youngsters,” Mr. Binnall stated in an announcement, including that the Flynn household’s “energy, unity and dedication to America ought to be celebrated, not attacked.”
A Pardon and a Windfall
This spring, Mr. Flynn traveled across the nation on a bus with one in all his sons, Michael Flynn Jr., and a group of right-wing influencers, stopping in church buildings and different venues the place V.I.P. ticket patrons paid as a lot as $200 to satisfy the retired basic.
The event was the displaying of a hagiographical film about Mr. Flynn’s rise out of a big Irish American clan in Rhode Island to the head of energy — and, in its telling, his unjust fall by the hands of enemies within the authorities.
One of many film’s themes is Mr. Flynn’s monetary pressure after leaving the White Home. He served lower than a month on the job earlier than resigning amid reviews that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about telephone calls with a Russian diplomat. He later twice pleaded responsible to mendacity to federal investigators in regards to the communication however retracted the plea. The Justice Division finally dropped the case, and Mr. Flynn was pardoned by Mr. Trump within the closing weeks of his time period.
Paying for his authorized morass took a monetary toll. Mr. Flynn and his spouse offered their Northern Virginia residence. Mr. Flynn’s sister, Barbara Redgate, organized a fund to assist pay for legal professionals.
Whereas the fund had few authorized limits on its use, the cash could be used “solely to defray attorneys’ charges and different prices associated to authorized illustration,” the fund stated on its web site.
After Mr. Flynn’s authorized troubles largely led to 2020, there have been a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} left within the fund, unused. Ms. Redgate stated in a deposition final 12 months that she had obtained about $265,000 of that cash for “on a regular basis I put into working the account.” One other sister, Clare Eckert, obtained an undisclosed quantity for “writing and analyzing.”
Michael Flynn obtained the rest — between $250,000 and $1 million, she stated.
Mr. Binnall, the lawyer, stated Ms. Redgate had labored greater than full time on the venture, elevating cash by talking at occasions and making media appearances. He declined to say how a lot cash Mr. Flynn had obtained however stated Mr. Flynn thought-about the cost reimbursement for earlier authorized payments.
A New Household Enterprise
The authorized fund was simply a part of a steady of interconnected committees, nonprofit teams and firms — all buying and selling on Michael Flynn’s recognition in far-right circles and several other of them incomes earnings for his kin.
Mr. Flynn stored a schedule of appearances, charging Republican teams and candidates as much as $9,000 per speech and extra for consulting, in response to state and federal marketing campaign data. He headlined the ReAwaken tour, a roadshow of Christian nationalist figures. He and his son Michael, with whom the elder Mr. Flynn had as soon as began a consulting agency, started selling T-shirts and different branded gear on-line. Mr. Flynn and his brother Joseph teamed up with Patrick Byrne, the founding father of Overstock.com and a significant backer of efforts to contest the 2020 election, to create a nonprofit group known as the America Challenge.
In 2021, that group paid a enterprise managed by Michael Flynn $200,000 for consulting and one other managed by Joseph Flynn round $150,000. (In 2022, Joseph Flynn’s earnings from the group rose to about $260,000. He’s now not related to it.)
Extra not too long ago, Michael Flynn has additionally gotten into the media enterprise, becoming a member of the board of a penny inventory firm behind an internet video and podcast enterprise that incessantly options him in its content material. He obtained compensation of $375,000 in restricted inventory for consulting work, data present.
However no enterprise has develop into a household affair fairly like America’s Future.
The group was began as an anti-Communist effort within the Forties and has cycled by conservative causes since. Within the Eighties, its main determine was Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-feminist crusader.
However the group was largely dormant when, in 2021, its whole board resigned and its $3 million in leftover belongings handed to the management of Mr. Flynn.
The group’s earlier leaders didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Earlier than Mr. Flynn took over, tax filings present, the group’s chairmen and board members had been unpaid volunteers. That was typical. The nonprofit trade group BoardSource discovered that fewer than 1 p.c of charities like this one paid their board members.
Below Mr. Flynn, that modified.
In addition to the wage the group paid Mr. Flynn as chairman, it additionally paid his brother Joseph — a well being care government — $50,000 to be the group’s treasurer in 2021. Like his brother, Joseph Flynn labored two hours per week, in response to tax filings.
The group has additionally paid one other Flynn sibling, Mary Flynn O’Neill, a former administrator at Catholic church buildings, $148,000 to be its government director. A fourth Flynn — Valerie, Joseph’s spouse — obtained $1,050 to work in a sales space at a conference and to assist with “adorning and workplace set-up,” in response to court docket filings in a latest lawsuit.
The subsequent 12 months, the nonprofit group paid extra Flynns. An organization run by Michael Flynn’s sister, Ms. Eckert, was paid $128,000 for public relations work. And it paid $146,000 to a regulation agency run by Alicia Kutzer, Michael Flynn’s niece, in response to tax filings.
(One Flynn not listed as a associate or vendor in any of the political ventures is Michael Flynn’s brother Charles, a basic who instructions U.S. Military Pacific.)
It isn’t unlawful for nonprofit teams to pay their leaders’ kin, so long as they disclose these transactions.
However in 2022, when an I.R.S. type requested if America’s Future had carried out enterprise with corporations managed by Mr. Flynn’s kin, America’s Future answered “no.” The truth is, it had paid corporations that look like managed by Ms. Eckert and Ms. Kutzer. The group additionally omitted the funds to Valerie Flynn in its 2021 submitting with the I.R.S. and overlooked its funds to Ms. Flynn O’Neill in state filings in Hawaii and California, data present. The America Challenge, the nonprofit group led by Joseph Flynn, additionally didn’t disclose its funds to relations to the I.R.S.
Mr. Binnall, the lawyer, stated these seemed to be unintentional errors.
Below the regulation, the I.R.S. can high quality nonprofit teams as much as $50,000 for submitting tax returns with false data. However tax-law consultants stated that provision was not typically used, as a result of the short-handed I.R.S. audits solely a tiny fraction of nonprofit teams yearly.
Tax regulation consultants stated they had been struck by a disconnect in America’s Future’s funds: As its monetary fortunes went down, funds to Flynns went up.
In 2022, donations to America’s Future dropped by 40 p.c. Even its greatest fund-raiser was a bust: America’s Future spent a lot to carry an occasion at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Membership that it misplaced $63,000 for the night time.
The group ate into its financial savings, offered off belongings and misplaced $637,000 for the 12 months. However on the identical time, it tripled the quantity it paid to the Flynn household. And regardless of the monetary issues, Mr. Flynn himself obtained his elevate.
“For 2 hours every week, somebody’s getting $60,000?” stated Kelly Mathews, who advises charities as chief working officer of the New York Council of Nonprofits. “At a time once you’re about to hit the wall financially, what’s the rationale? They give the impression of being to me like they’re not very sustainable over time, with no important inflow of money.”
America’s Future declined to launch particulars about its 2023 funds.
‘The place we go one, we go all’
The group’s first mission after the Flynn takeover was elevating cash for an election audit in Arizona — an extension of efforts by Mr. Flynn and different Trump allies to attempt to overturn the outcomes of the election.
After that, Mr. Flynn tried to lift cash by promoting $99 memberships, full with a signed copy of his guide, a pocket Structure and a T-shirt printed with “I’m a Champion for America’s Future.” However tax filings present that effort raised solely $17,500 in 2022 (as a tax-exempt group, America’s Future just isn’t required to determine its donors).
America’s Future then embraced a brand new trigger: defending kids from sexual abuse and human trafficking.
In doing so, the group started to amplify a false conspiracy concept, much like the one on the coronary heart of the QAnon motion: {that a} world cabal of pedophiles controls the media and politics.
In a video on its web site, members of the group’s board and advisory board echoed the false “Pizzagate” conspiracy concept, a QAnon precursor alleging that outstanding Democrats had been trafficking kids at a Washington pizza parlor. Ms. Flynn O’Neill warned of an organized effort to make use of kids’s physique elements.
“They’ve organ harvesting,” she says in a video. “They’ve additionally discovered a option to take the blood, and use the blood, to make themselves youthful.”
It was not the primary time the Flynns had proven indicators of assist for the QAnon motion. Michael Flynn had as soon as filmed himself and relations reciting its motto “The place we go one, we go all.” His slogan — “Digital Troopers” — turned a QAnon rallying cry.
Privately, Mr. Flynn has expressed disdain for the conspiracy concept. In a recorded dialog leaked in 2021, he stated he believed QAnon to be “complete nonsense” and a disinformation marketing campaign created by the left and the C.I.A.
But, the nonprofit group’s new messaging opened up a brand new stream of income: a collection of touring seminars known as “Get within the Battle,” the place attendees pay $40 to listen to Mr. Flynn provide recommendations on recognizing victims and traffickers.
On a latest Friday night, Mr. Flynn spoke to some dozen folks sitting in pews on the Portage Group Chapel close to Kent, Ohio. He described what he stated was a sudden outbreak of kid exploitation and spoke of a “ethical decay” eroding the nation.
Approached by a Instances reporter, Mr. Flynn declined to remark and ordered the reporter to depart.
Mr. Flynn’s niece adopted his remarks with a slide presentation. His sister, Ms. Flynn O’Neill, watched from the entrance row.
Karen Yourish, Seamus Hughes, Kirsten Noyes contributed reporting.
