Michael Flynn is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General who served as the 25th National Security Advisor to President Trump from January 20 to February 13, 2017, the shortest tenure in that office's history. He resigned after it emerged he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition.
He subsequently pleaded guilty to making false statements to FBI agents about those conversations, was later pardoned by President Trump in November 2020, and had his conviction vacated. Flynn appears on the DOJ's February 2026 list of approximately 305 "politically exposed persons" whose names appear somewhere in the 3.5 million pages of Epstein-related documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The DOJ stated explicitly that inclusion on the list does not indicate the nature or degree of connection: some individuals had direct email contact with Epstein or Maxwell, while others appear only in press clippings contained within the files.
No direct personal relationship between Flynn and Epstein has been documented in the released files. Flynn's most prominent involvement in the Epstein matter has been as a vocal commentator: he publicly pressed President Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to pursue more aggressive accountability measures following the file release, calling it a "disaster" and demanding exposure of those implicated. Flynn's calls for accountability came despite his own name appearing on the politically exposed persons list.