Raskin demands DOJ turn over details on settlement with Michael Flynn

Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is demanding files related to the Justice Department’s settlement with Michael Flynn, arguing it “offers a road map for this epically corrupt President to keep paying out his political underlings” with taxpayer funds.

The Justice Department late last month agreed to pay $1.25 million to Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, in connection to a case where he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about meeting with the Russian ambassador.

Flynn in 2017 pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. In 2023, he brought a malicious prosecution suit seeking $50 million, but the Department of Justice (DOJ) fought the suit, and it was dismissed by a judge.

“That dismissal should have been the end of it. But when Donald Trump returned to office and Mr. Flynn refiled his amended complaint, your DOJ entirely reversed its position,” Raskin wrote in a letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

“Suddenly, the Department decided to give Mr. Flynn $1.25 million—to settle a case it had already won. The Department out of nowhere chose to fork over substantial amounts in taxpayer dollars for having the audacity to investigate, prosecute, and convict a Trump ally who had admitted to committing a serious felony by lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials.”

The Flynn settlement comes amid a series of requests for settlements made by Trump himself as well as his allies.

Trump has sought a $230 million settlement related to the cases brought against him related to Jan. 6, 2021, and the Mar-a-Lago documents case.

Former Trump White House lawyer Stefan Passantino has also sought a settlement with the DOJ over his treatment by the Jan. 6 committee. A number of figures connected with Jan. 6 have also brought settlement cases under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA).

“The Flynn settlement is an ominous test case as the President and his political allies are all lining up for their free-government-money payouts,” Raskin argued.

“The President himself has demanded $230 million from this Department through FTCA claims and has sued the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for a staggering $10 billion—a figure around two-thirds the size of the IRS’s total annual budget. Roughly 400 pardoned January 6th defendants have likewise filed FTCA claims with your Department seeking between $1 million and $10 million each; DOJ has conspicuously failed to reject those claims, even though most appear to be well past the FTCA’s two-year statute of limitations and are nothing but a brazen attempt at highway robbery.”

Another group of rioters also brought a case in Florida, while five Proud Boys leaders convicted of seditious conspiracy filed a $100 million lawsuit alleging malicious prosecution.

“The Flynn settlement offers a road map for this epically corrupt President to keep paying out his political underlings and private militiamen with taxpayer money,” Raskin said.

The DOJ did not immediately respond to request for comment.

A lawyer for Flynn also did not immediately comment.

Flynn’s settlement is not the first agreed to under the Trump administration.

The family of slain Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt received a $4.975 million settlement disclosed last June.

Congress also briefly passed a provision that would allow senators whose call records had been subpoenaed by former special counsel Jack Smith to bring lucrative suits over the matter, though it was repealed just a few months later following outrage in the House.

Raskin’s letter asks the Justice Department to turn over all its documents and correspondence related to the Flynn settlement, including with the White House, as well as for all legal memoranda. It also asks whether any DOJ officials recused themselves from the matter or had potential conflicts of interest analyzed given Flynn’s ties to the president.

Raskin also questioned the legality of the Flynn settlement, noting that the law requires settlements be born from a “genuine adversarial dispute.”

“The Trump DOJ’s abrupt reversal from a winning litigating position offers powerful circumstantial evidence that the parties may not be genuinely adversarial and that the settlement may be collusive in essence,” he wrote.

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