The most recent event involves a small amount compared to what happens in Washington: the retired lieutenant general had been waiting since 2022 to get about $38,000 in retirement funds from the U.S. Army. Take a moment to think about why the Army held back that money. Officials found that Flynn had taken money from a media company that was described in court documents as “Russian government-controlled” for a speech he gave in 2015, and he had done this without getting permission from military leaders first. That’s not a small matter for a retired officer of his rank. The process in question is there for a reason.
Still, Flynn sued, saying that he hadn’t been given enough time to prepare before the Army began taking money from his benefits. Someone with knowledge of the situation said that the Justice Department finally agreed to settle for less than $75,000 while Trump was in office. The settlement was finalized not long ago.
If you only look at this one case, it might seem like a normal legal dispute about how to handle something, not a disagreement about what is right or wrong. But this case needs more context. Just a few months ago, this is the same Michael Flynn who got $1.25 million from the Justice Department to settle a separate lawsuit in which he said he was the victim of a politically motivated prosecution. In 2017, Flynn admitted that he lied to the FBI about conversations he had with a Russian diplomat. He later changed his mind and was later forgiven by President Trump. Democrats said that earlier payment was a breach of trust in the public. The second settlement, which was smaller but still telling, showed up without much of a fuss.
In this, Flynn is not the only one. Carter Page, another person from the time of the Russia investigation, sued the government for spying on him and got more than $1 million from the Justice Department in April. It’s becoming clear that Trump supporters who have long-standing complaints against federal law enforcement are going to civil court, which is paid for by taxpayers, to settle their cases.
How the Army’s first decision came to be is what makes the retirement fund case so interesting. There had been a lot of attention on Flynn’s speech at a Russia Today gala in Moscow in 2015, where he famously sat at the same table as Vladimir Putin. The Army didn’t do anything until 2022, which was many years after the event and after Flynn was freed. It’s still not clear what happened at what time or why enforcement happened when it did.
The larger picture includes the Justice Department’s short-lived “anti-weaponization fund,” which was set up earlier this year as part of a deal with Trump over tax information that was leaked. The fund was quickly shut down because of political backlash, but Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has said that civil lawsuits are still a valid option for people who say the DOJ mistreated them. That’s exactly what happened with Flynn, even though no one in the administration would say it. That’s what Blanche was steering toward.
After seeing how everything is going, it’s hard not to notice how the same legal processes that were used to investigate Flynn are now being used to reward him. The ways they work haven’t changed. The money has moved in a certain direction.
