Justice Department Prepares to Pay Trump Ally Michael Flynn Millions

Michael Flynn is seeking restitution from the government to the tune of $50 million.

Donald Trump’s onetime national security adviser is now negotiating a settlement with his Department of Justice, claiming that he was unjustly prosecuted by former special counsel Robert Mueller for lying to the FBI about conversations with a Russian official. Flynn initially pleaded guilty and then fought the prosecution, eventually receiving a pardon from Trump in 2020.

Flynn later filed a lawsuit against the government for damages, only to have a federal judge dismiss the case in December last year. While the Biden administration fought Flynn’s case, the Trump administration seems open to a settlement.

The move mirrors Trump’s attempt to get $240 million from the DOJ to settle his own claims of politically motivated prosecution. Flynn notoriously lasted only 22 days as Trump’s first national security adviser in 2017, resigning over his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. at the time, Sergey Kislyak.

Since then, Flynn has been one of the leading evangelists of the QAnon conspiracy theory and has also pushed Christian nationalism. If he actually gets his hefty settlement (with Trump’s approval), it’ll show that he’s still friendly with the president and the Republican Party, leaving the door open for conspiracy theorists to push their agenda.