The Justice Department has settled a lawsuit brought by Michael Flynn, who served briefly as President Trump’s national security advisor during his first term and was subjected to a yearslong prosecution related to debunked allegations that Mr. Trump collaborated with the Russians to win the White House.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Mr. Flynn, who in 2023 sued the department for $50 million, was reported to have received a $1.2 million settlement.
“This ordeal stemmed from partisan government officials in a coordinated effort to pursue an innocent man as part of a broader campaign to undermine President Trump and his administration. It was a relentless, partisan pursuit that weaponized federal law enforcement in an audacious and unjust manner,” Mr. Flynn said in a statement.
He said the settlement was a step by the government to provide accountability for those who carried out his prosecution, which he called “a brazen attempt to weaponize federal law enforcement against political opponents or innocent citizens.”
Mr. Flynn entered a guilty plea in December 2017 to one felony count of making false statements to the FBI regarding a conversation he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the weeks following the 2016 election. He later moved to withdraw his plea after the Justice Department changed its plan to issue a lenient sentencing recommendation and called for Mr. Flynn to serve six months in prison.
Critics of the case argued Mr. Flynn was politically targeted and did nothing wrong by talking to Mr. Kislyak.
His prosecution was initiated under then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into whether Mr. Trump’s campaign colluded with the Russians to win the White House.
Mr. Flynn said he was forced into accepting the guilty plea due to mounting legal bills and “relentless attacks” on himself and his family by the Justice Department.
Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Flynn in 2020.
Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, criticized the settlement and reiterated his view that Mr. Flynn was facilitating a nefarious connection between the Trump administration and Moscow.
“This is someone who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials at a time when Russia was actively interfering in our democratic process, after being charged by the Department of Justice during President Trump’s first term,” Mr. Warner said. “For this Justice Department to now turn around and reward that behavior with a million-dollar settlement sends exactly the wrong message to our adversaries, to our intelligence professionals, and to the American people.”
The Mueller investigation concluded without finding any evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign actively sought work with Russia to win the 2016 election. The probe found Russians were seeking to sow discord in the electoral process and blamed them for hacking Democratic emails and seeking to hurt Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The CIA initially determined that Russia did not substantively interfere with the 2016 election, but the narrative changed suddenly in December 2016, a month after Mr. Trump’s victory.
President Obama ordered a new intelligence assessment from the CIA and other agencies. The president wanted the revised assessment to show Russian involvement in the presidential election, documents released last year show.
Former CIA Director John Brennan helped steer the new assessment to center on the Trump-Russia collusion hoax using poorly sourced evidence, according to a declassified report by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
• Alex Swoyer contributed to this story.
