Michael Flynn claims Covid was invented by Soros, Gates and others to defeat Trump in bizarre conspiracy theory

Michael Flynn has claimed Covid was invented by George Soros, Bill Gates and others in order to defeat Donald Trump.

The former three star general and adviser to the ex-president ranted about the pandemic during an appearance on the far right-wing Infowars website.

Mr Flynn has become a leading figure in the QAnon conspiracy theory movement, and even suggested that the US military consider a Myanmar-style coup.

He told Infowars that the World Health Organization, the United Nations and other groups “see themselves as ‘this is how we can rule the world, this is how we can control societies, this is how we can control humanity.’

“So let’s introduce something called Covid, and they did it, and they did it for a couple of reasons, one of the big reasons was to steal an election,” he said.

“If the Democrats worked as hard on foreign policy as they did on stealing the election maybe we would be better off.”

Mr Flynn then listed a string of regular right-wing targets as being the ones pulling the strings of global power.

“When you start to look at who is directing them, and who is leading them, there are real people behind it, I mean (Klaus) Schwab is one, George Soros, you have the Arabella Group, these are real things, led by real people who have placed themselves above – you know Gates is another one – who have placed themselves above some of these world institutions and they drive them, they really do drive them.”

Last week it was announced the Mr Flynn, as well as Rudy Giuliani, will be stripped of his honorary degrees by the University of Rhode Island.

The move comes after the institution’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to uphold the honorary degree committees recommendation to revoke them.

Action was taken because university officials believe both men, who have supported Mr Trump’s false stolen election claims, “no longer represent the highest level of our values and standards”.

Mr Flynn, a 1981 graduate from the university and three star army general, had been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.

He was Donald Trump’s national security adviser for just 24 days before resigning in disgrace and twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia.

He eventually received a presidential pardon from Mr Trump.