Ex-NSC spokesman Michael Anton claims top officials were 'clearly out to get' Michael Flynn

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Critics accuse Barr of politicizing DOJ after dropping Flynn case

Reaction and analysis from former National Security Council spokesperson Michael Anton.

Michael Anton, a former National Security Council spokesman hired by Michael Flynn, told "Bill Hemmer Reports" Friday that the initial investigation into Flynn stemmed in part from a desire for "revenge" on the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

"Flynn was in many ways an unpopular guy in the career services because he challenged received opinion and he made it plain he disagreed on a lot of things and he made it even plainer that as National Security Adviser, he was going to implement some real sweeping reforms and I think some people were afraid of that," Anton told host Bill Hemmer.

Anton added that a series of leaks targeting Flynn that appeared in the media during the Trump transition period likely came from "somewhere in the Obama administration." Anton said the leaks continued after Trump's inauguration, suggesting that some of the leaks were from career civil servants.

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"[Flynn] had a lot of political enemies inside the government, and he had been dismissed from his post as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency by the Obama administration [in 2014]," he said.

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"I think they were clearly out to get him."

Anton claimed that Obama was likely aware investigators were surveilling Flynn's phone calls, which Anton said led to Obama going out of his way to advise Trump not to hire Flynn for a post in his administration.

Now that the Justice Department has moved to drop the case against Flynn, Anton said he hopes the retired Army leuteant general receives some form of "redress."

"I would also like to see the people who did this to him punished in a serious way," he added. "When you go and you set up a person and you bend the levers of justice in our system in this way to target a person unjustly there needs to be consequences for that and I for one would like to see those consequences."