Two years ago, a court in Florida threw out Michael Flynn’s malicious prosecution lawsuit seeking $50 million from the US government. Yesterday, the government agreed to settle it anyway, handing $1.25 million in taxpayer dollars to the former national security advisor.
Clearly this is an outrageous abuse by the Trump DOJ. It’s also a template for the looting to come, as everyone from Proud Boy Enrique Tarrio to Trump himself lines up to feed at the government trough.
During the 2016 transition, outgoing President Obama warned Trump that General Michael Flynn was untrustworthy. Trump wrote this off as sour grapes and changed history.
If Flynn hadn’t been on Trump’s team, he wouldn’t have gotten picked up on a FBI wiretap promising sanctions relief to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. If he hadn’t been compromised by that communication, the FBI wouldn’t have gone to ask him about it. If he hadn’t lied to the FBI, he wouldn’t have wound up in the middle of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. If Trump hadn’t asked FBI Director Comey to kill that investigation and then fired him for refusing, there’d be no Special Counsel Robert Mueller. And without Mueller, Flynn wouldn’t have gotten indicted for lying to the FBI.
But he did, and here we all are.
Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI in December 2017. Then, at a December 2018 plea colloquy, he did it again, affirming under oath a second time that he was guilty and that his plea was voluntary. But Judge Emmet Sullivan refused to accept that plea, ordering him to go back and earn it by cooperating a whole lot more in the prosecution of his former business partner Bijan Rafiekian on charges of secretly lobbying for the Turkish government.
(There’s another what if to add to the pile.)
Instead Flynn ditched his Covington lawyers in favor of a MAGA hothead named Sidney Powell. She persuaded him to withdraw his plea and began lobbying Attorney General Bill Barr to drop the case. In May of 2020, the DOJ moved to dismiss pursuant to FRCrP 48(g). A furious Judge Sullivan balked and appointed an amicus to argue against dismissal, and the whole thing ultimately became moot when Trump pardoned Flynn in November 2020.
In 2023, Flynn filed a Federal Tort Claims Act complaint in the Middle District of Florida, seeking $50 million for malicious prosecution and abuse of process. The case was defective in every conceivable way: It was time-barred. It ignored sovereign immunity. It was filed by Kraken lawyer Jesse Binnall.
But Flynn lucked out, because he landed on the docket of Judge Mary Scriven. Scriven is a Biden appointee, and she was never going to let this case go to trial. By then, she’d already dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by Flynn’s sister-in-law against CNN. But Judge Scriven is no one’s idea of a racehorse. She moves slowly, and she bends over backward to let litigants have their say. In December of 2024, she dismissed the case for being hopelessly defective — although she failed to reach the issue of statute of limitations — but allowed Flynn to amend his complaint again. Which is how Flynn wound up dragging out the process to file a third complaint … and for Trump to get back into the White House.
In September, the parties filed a joint motion to extend time for the government to respond, citing ongoing settlement negotiations. And on March 25, they announced they’d agreed to a payout. ABC was first to report that Flynn will take home $1.25 million for his troubles.
Naturally, the DOJ cast this as a great victory for Trump himself.
“Those who instigated the Russia Collusion Hoax and Crossfire Hurricane abused their power to mislead the American people and tarnish the reputations of President Trump and his supporters,” crowed a DOJ spox who would prefer to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons. “Today’s settlement, secured by this Justice Department, is an important step in redressing that historic injustice.”
This looting of the public fisc will likely continue. Trump’s DOJ has already paid $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt, the January 6 rioter shot while trying to break into the House Speaker’s Lobby. Several of the Proud Boys including their leader Enrique Tarrio, have filed a Bivens suit. Not content with their pardon, they now want a payout. And of course Trump himself has filed a FTCA claim, demanding $230 million from the Justice Department over the Mar-a-Lago search and the special counsel investigations. Trump acknowledged the absurdity himself, telling reporters, “I’m sort of suing myself. I don’t know, how do you settle the lawsuit.”
The Flynn settlement is the proof of concept. The answer to “how do you settle the lawsuit” is apparently “however the president wants.”
Liz Dye produces the Law and Chaos Substack and podcast. You can subscribe by clicking the logo:
