Trump DOJ to pay Flynn $1.2M over Russia inquiry

What happened

The Justice Department has agreed to pay Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, about $1.2 million to settle Flynn’s claims he was wrongfully prosecuted for his role in the 2016 Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, according to court papers filed Wednesday, which didn’t disclose the settlement amount, and news organizations. The Justice Department and Flynn both “hailed the agreement in separate statements, hinting at the cooperative nature of the settlement,” The New York Times said.

Who said what

The settlement is the “latest turn in the long-running legal saga involving Flynn,” The Associated Press said. He twice pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s U.S. ambassador on Trump’s behalf, but then tried to withdraw his plea. Trump ended that case by pardoning Flynn in November 2020, after losing his reelection bid, and Flynn filed a $50 million malicious prosecution claim in 2023. A federal judge dismissed that suit in 2024, but Trump’s Justice Department revived it and entered settlement talks last summer.

The payout will “likely fuel questions as to whether Flynn received a favorable outcome due to his continued vocal support for President Trump,” ABC News said. It was an “extraordinary example,” the Times said, of how the Trump Justice Department “has sought to use the legal system to punish the president’s enemies and reward his allies and supporters” while trying to “erase the effect of some of the prominent criminal cases” against him and them.

What next?

Trump has demanded that the Justice Department pay him $230 million for the two prosecutions he faced before winning re-election in 2024. His administration has “also taken steps to undo criminal convictions the government had secured against Stephen K. Bannon and Peter Navarro,” The Washington Post said.