The Justice Department has agreed to pay Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, $1.25 million to settle claims that he was wrongfully prosecuted for making false statements to federal agents investigating ties between Russia and Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The settlement agreement, which put to rest a lawsuit Mr. Flynn filed three years ago, was an extraordinary example of how the Trump administration has offered legal relief to those aligned with the president. It appeared to be part of a broader effort to erase the effect of some of the prominent criminal cases brought against Mr. Trump and his allies.
Mr. Flynn’s suit, filed in Federal District Court in Tampa, accused federal prosecutors of maliciously charging him with lying to investigators who were working on the Russia inquiry, even though he had twice pleaded guilty to misleading the F.B.I. about conversations he had had with a Russian diplomat as Mr. Trump was poised to enter the White House for the first time.
In 2020, after an unusual pressure campaign by Mr. Trump and several of his allies, the Justice Department dropped its case against Mr. Flynn, chiseling away at the results of the Russia investigation.
Both the Justice Department and Mr. Flynn himself hailed the agreement in separate statements, hinting at the cooperative nature of the settlement.
A department spokeswoman called it “an important step in redressing” a “historic injustice,” and accused those who had worked on the Russia investigation of abusing their power.
Mr. Flynn, in a statement issued by his lawyer, Jesse Binnall, said he was pleased by the agreement, which ended “a coordinated effort to pursue an innocent man as part of a broader campaign to undermine President Trump and his administration.”
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“It marks a meaningful step toward righting a profound wrong,” the statement said.
The Russia investigation, which unfolded during much of Mr. Trump’s first term in office, ultimately determined that his 2016 campaign had not conspired with Russia to help him win the White House, but explicitly did not exonerate him on separate accusations of obstructing justice. The inquiry was first led by James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, and then after he was fired by Mr. Trump, by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who died last Friday.
Mr. Trump has long complained that the F.B.I. mistreated Mr. Flynn, even though Mr. Trump fired him weeks into his first presidency for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations with the Russian diplomat. In late 2020, after he lost that year’s election to Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Flynn, bringing an end to the drawn-out legal saga of his prosecution.
But the end of his criminal case was in essence the beginning of Mr. Flynn’s efforts to sue the Justice Department in a claim that originally sought $50 million.
He accused federal law enforcement of opening “a baseless investigation” into him and ultimately filing “unjustified criminal charges.” The Biden administration sought to dismiss the suit, but the litigation took a different turn after Mr. Trump re-entered the White House.
Time and again, the Justice Department under Mr. Trump has sought to use the legal system to punish the president’s enemies and reward his allies and supporters — including those who have filed wrongful prosecution suits.
Last year, the department paid nearly $5 million to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the relatives of Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran who was killed by the police during the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mr. Trump himself has filed claims demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the two federal prosecutions in which he faced separate charges of trying overturn the 2020 election and illegally holding on to reams of classified documents after he left office in 2021.
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.
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