WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has settled for roughly $1.2 million a lawsuit with Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to President Donald Trump who pleaded guilty during the Republican’s first term to lying about phone conversations with a top Russian diplomat but was later pardoned.
Court papers filed Wednesday do not reveal the settlement amount, but a person familiar with the matter, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disclose nonpublic information, 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 the complaint. Attorney General Pam Bondi, a former personal lawyer for the president, has been a vocal critic of the Russia investigation in which Flynn was charged and the FBI and Justice Department over the last year have pushed out officials who participated in criminal inquiries of Trump.
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.
