DOJ settles with ex-Trump adviser Flynn for US$1.2 million over ‘historic injustice’
Michael Flynn, who was pardoned by Donald Trump in 2020, asserted that the case against him amounted to a malicious prosecution
The US Justice Department has settled for roughly US$1.2 million a lawsuit from Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to President Donald Trump who pleaded guilty during the Republican’s first term to lying to the FBI about his conversations with a top Russian diplomat and was later pardoned.
Court papers filed Wednesday do not reveal the settlement amount, but a person familiar with the matter, who spoke to Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disclose nonpublic information, confirmed the total as about US$1.2 million.
The settlement resolves a 2023 lawsuit in which Flynn sought at least US$50 million and asserted that the criminal case against him amounted to a malicious prosecution. It also represents a stark turnabout in position for a Justice Department that during the Biden administration had pressed a judge to dismiss Flynn’s complaint.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, a former personal lawyer for the president, has openly criticised the Russia investigation in which Flynn was charged and the Justice Department in the last year has opened investigations into former officials who participated in that inquiry.
The Justice Department cast the settlement as an “important step in redressing” what it says was a “historic injustice” of the Russia investigation that shadowed Trump for much of his first term.
“This Department of Justice will continue to pursue accountability at all levels for this wrongdoing. Such weaponisation of the federal government must never be allowed to happen again,” a spokesperson said.