(Headline USA) The Justice Department has settled for roughly $1.2 million a lawsuit from Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to President Donald Trump who was prosecuted during the Republican’s first term as part of the FBI’s politically motivated Russiagate investigation.
Court papers filed Wednesday do not reveal the settlement amount, but an anonymous source confirmed the total as about $1.2 million.
The settlement resolves a 2023 lawsuit in which Flynn sought at least $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 criticized 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 weaponization of the federal government must never be allowed to happen again,” a spokesperson said.
In a separate statement, Flynn said: “Nothing can fully compensate for the hell that my family and I have endured over these many years — the relentless attacks, the destruction of reputations, the financial ruin, and the profound personal toll inflicted upon us all. No amount of money or formal resolution can erase the pain caused by a prosecution that should never have been brought.”
The settlement is the latest turn in the long-running legal saga involving Flynn, one of six Trump associates charged as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general who vigorously campaigned at Trump’s side, served for weeks as his first national security adviser before being pushed out of his position. He remained a Trump ally even after agreeing to cooperate with Mueller’s team. He was pardoned in the final weeks of the president’s first term.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
