Michael Flynn is a retired United States Army Lieutenant General who served as the 18th Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency before being forced to retire from the military. He also was the 25th United States National Security Advisor, but his tenure lasted only 24 days, the shortest in the history of the office. He was forced to resign after details of his communications with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak emerged and it became clear that he had lied to the vice president about his communications. According to intelligence reports, he discussed about President Barack Obama's sanctions on Russia with the ambassador. He was investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller and is currently awaiting his sentence for lying to the FBI. While Flynn was a registered Democrat and came from a "very strong Democratic family", he was among the keynote speakers on the first night of the 2016 Republican National Convention, before becoming a Trump surrogate.
