Former Special Operations head decries Michael Flynn's 'totally inappropriate' call for military to overturn election

Retired Gen. Michael Flynn, the freshly pardoned former national security adviser who has since dove into a conspiratorial rabbit hole, has once again called for the military to step in and overturn the 2020 election results.

In a Friday appearance on the right-wing network Newsmax, Flynn insisted that he's "not calling for" martial law — something he has endorsed in the past. He'd simply like President Trump to order the military to "rerun an election" in swing states, earning condemnation from current and former military officials alike.

In response to a clip of Flynn's Newsmax appearance, retired Gen. Tony Thomas reminded Flynn that he knows better than to make such wild claims. "You know that leveraging the military to 'rerun elections' is a totally inappropriate role for the profession," the former commander of the United States Special Operations Command tweeted. "Stop!"

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Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy and Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville didn't single out Flynn directly, but did decry his actions with a Friday statement. "There is no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of an American election," the leaders affirmed.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a similar point last week. "We have established a very long 240-year tradition of an apolitical military that does not get involved in domestic politics," Milley told NPR amid right-wing calls for the military to overturn the election.