If Flynn hadn\u2019t been on Trump\u2019s team, he wouldn\u2019t have gotten picked up on a FBI wiretap promising sanctions relief to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. If he hadn\u2019t been compromised by that communication, the FBI wouldn\u2019t have gone to ask him about it. If he hadn\u2019t lied to the FBI, he wouldn\u2019t have wound up in the middle of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. If Trump hadn\u2019t asked FBI Director Comey to kill that investigation and then fired him for refusing, there\u2019d be no Special Counsel Robert Mueller. And without Mueller, Flynn wouldn\u2019t have gotten indicted for lying to the FBI.<\/p>\n
But he did, and here we all are.<\/em><\/p>\n 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<\/em> in the prosecution of his former business partner Bijan Rafiekian on charges of secretly lobbying for the Turkish government. <\/p>\n (There\u2019s another what if<\/em> to add to the pile.)<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n 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\u2019d already dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by Flynn\u2019s sister-in-law against CNN. But Judge Scriven is no one\u2019s idea of a racehorse. She moves slowly, and she bends over backward to let litigants have their say. In December of 2024, she dismissed<\/a> the case for being hopelessly defective \u2014 although she failed to reach the issue of statute of limitations \u2014 but allowed Flynn to amend his complaint again. Which is how Flynn wound up dragging out the process to file a third complaint \u2026 and for Trump to get back into the White House. <\/p>\n In September, the parties filed a joint motion<\/a> to extend time for the government to respond, citing ongoing settlement negotiations. And on March 25, they announced they\u2019d agreed<\/a> to a payout. ABC<\/a> was first to report that Flynn will take home $1.25 million for his troubles.<\/p>\n Naturally, the DOJ cast this as a great victory for Trump himself.<\/p>\n \u201cThose 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,\u201d crowed a DOJ spox who would prefer to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons. \u201cToday\u2019s settlement, secured by this Justice Department, is an important step in redressing that historic injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n This looting of the public fisc will likely continue. Trump\u2019s 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\u2019s Lobby. Several of the Proud Boys including their leader Enrique Tarrio, have filed a Bivens<\/em> suit<\/a>. 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, \u201cI\u2019m sort of suing myself. I don\u2019t know, how do you settle the lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n The Flynn settlement is the proof of concept. The answer to \u201chow do you settle the lawsuit\u201d is apparently \u201chowever the president wants.\u201d <\/p>\n Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0Substack\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0You can subscribe by clicking the logo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The post DOJ Agrees To Let Michael Flynn Loot Treasury To The Tune Of $1.25M<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Two years ago, a court in Florida threw out Michael Flynn\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n Clearly this is an outrageous abuse by the Trump DOJ. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n During the 2016 transition, outgoing President Obama warned<\/a> Trump that General Michael Flynn was untrustworthy. Trump wrote this off as sour grapes and changed history.<\/p>\n If Flynn hadn\u2019t been on Trump\u2019s team, he wouldn\u2019t have gotten picked up on a FBI wiretap promising sanctions relief to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. If he hadn\u2019t been compromised by that communication, the FBI wouldn\u2019t have gone to ask him about it. If he hadn\u2019t lied to the FBI, he wouldn\u2019t have wound up in the middle of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. If Trump hadn\u2019t asked FBI Director Comey to kill that investigation and then fired him for refusing, there\u2019d be no Special Counsel Robert Mueller. And without Mueller, Flynn wouldn\u2019t have gotten indicted for lying to the FBI.<\/p>\n But he did, and here we all are.<\/em><\/p>\n 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<\/em> in the prosecution of his former business partner Bijan Rafiekian on charges of secretly lobbying for the Turkish government. <\/p>\n (There\u2019s another what if<\/em> to add to the pile.)<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n 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\u2019d already dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by Flynn\u2019s sister-in-law against CNN. But Judge Scriven is no one\u2019s idea of a racehorse. She moves slowly, and she bends over backward to let litigants have their say. In December of 2024, she dismissed<\/a> the case for being hopelessly defective \u2014 although she failed to reach the issue of statute of limitations \u2014 but allowed Flynn to amend his complaint again. Which is how Flynn wound up dragging out the process to file a third complaint \u2026 and for Trump to get back into the White House. <\/p>\n In September, the parties filed a joint motion<\/a> to extend time for the government to respond, citing ongoing settlement negotiations. And on March 25, they announced they\u2019d agreed<\/a> to a payout. ABC<\/a> was first to report that Flynn will take home $1.25 million for his troubles.<\/p>\n Naturally, the DOJ cast this as a great victory for Trump himself.<\/p>\n \u201cThose 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,\u201d crowed a DOJ spox who would prefer to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons. \u201cToday\u2019s settlement, secured by this Justice Department, is an important step in redressing that historic injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n This looting of the public fisc will likely continue. Trump\u2019s 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\u2019s Lobby. Several of the Proud Boys including their leader Enrique Tarrio, have filed a Bivens<\/em> suit<\/a>. 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, \u201cI\u2019m sort of suing myself. I don\u2019t know, how do you settle the lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n The Flynn settlement is the proof of concept. The answer to \u201chow do you settle the lawsuit\u201d is apparently \u201chowever the president wants.\u201d <\/p>\n Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0Substack\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0You can subscribe by clicking the logo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Two years ago, a court in Florida threw out Michael Flynn\u2019s 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\u2019s also a template […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":147197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/law-and-chaos-logo-liz-dye-300x153-QNMKJt.jpg?fit=300%2C153&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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