Then came the matter of Michael Flynn.
In December, it emerged that Flynn — a Rhode Island native, retired lieutenant general and former national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was later pardoned by Donald Trump — would be inducted into the Hall of Fame at its annual banquet this spring.
At least nine members of the organization’s board resigned in response. Some of this year’s other inductees said they would decline the honor. The husband of one of the board members who had resigned reported the group’s former longtime president to the Internal Revenue Service.
Of all the institutions torn apart by the rise of Trump’s brand of politics and ensuing backlash, this may be the smallest and most unusual.
In interviews, half a dozen former board members expressed disbelief and sadness at how the gale-force winds of partisan politics had wrecked the organization’s reputation. The columnist for the Boston Globe who first reported Flynn’s impending induction acerbically called the body a “hall of shame.” A previous honoree chastised the board for elevating a “radioactive” candidate like Flynn.
A key figure in the dispute is Patrick Conley, an 85-year-old lawyer with a pugilistic temperament who serves as Rhode Island’s official “historian laureate.” Conley was president of the Hall of Fame for 20 years until 2023 and still holds sway over the organization.
Conley defended Flynn’s induction to the Hall of Fame in an opinion piece in the Providence Journal. The decision to honor Flynn had been the subject of “vile coordinated protest,” he wrote in late December. The board would not withdraw Flynn’s induction but would defer it to “a more peaceful and rational time.”
He gave no indication of when that time would be.
Conley didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment. Lawrence Reid, the Hall of Fame’s president, declined to speak with The Washington Post. Flynn did not respond to a request for comment on his induction.
John Parrillo teaches history at a local university and served on the Hall of Fame’s board for seven years before stepping down in late December, saying he disagreed with Flynn’s “far-right, militaristic” vision for America.
“It tears my heart out that I had to leave it,” Parrillo said. “We’ve never talked politics.”
Inductees are celebrated at an annual ceremony opened by bagpipes and studded with local dignitaries. Each receives a statuette, a replica of the “Independent Man” atop Rhode Island’s State House. Parrillo already had his nominee for 2025 picked out: novelist Cormac McCarthy, who was born in Providence and died last year.
The nation’s tiniest state — just 48 miles in one direction and 37 miles in the other — longs for recognition. “Some say we’re a small state with a big inferiority complex,” said one former board member, who like several others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. “This idea that there are Hall of Famers, great people, honorable people, is something Rhode Island craves in its psyche.”
It’s a small state in other ways, too. Parrillo lives in Middletown, Flynn’s hometown, and knew Flynn’s mother (“a wonderful person”). But when he learned that Flynn had received a majority of the board’s votes, he was stunned. “I said, ‘Holy cripe,’” Parrillo recalled. “They have every right to do whatever they want, but we shouldn’t put controversial people in the Hall of Fame.”
The controversy around Flynn goes beyond pleading…
This article was originally published by a www.washingtonpost.com . Read the Original article here. .
