Michael Flynn claims he was 'targeted' by FBI because he was 'direct threat' to 'deep state' plot to 'discredit and derail President Trump' in $50 million lawsuit 

Michael Flynn, the archetypal nationalist information advisor for President Donald Trump who doubly pleaded blameworthy to charges of lying to the FBI astir his conversations with a Russian agent, is once again suing the national authorities claiming helium was wrongfully prosecuted. The lawsuit was initially filed successful July 2023 and dismissed by a national justice successful Florida successful December 2024.

Flynn successful 2017 pleaded blameworthy to to 1 felony number of "willfully and knowingly making materially mendacious statements and omissions to the Federal Bureau of Investigation" regarding conversations helium had with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States.

He was pardoned by Donald Trump successful November 2020.

In the 79-page amended complaint, filed Monday successful the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Flynn says helium was the unfortunate of "malicious prosecution and gross maltreatment of process" and claims to beryllium seeking "accountability and damages against the United States for these wrongs" allegedly committed against him done agents of the national government.

Love existent crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life transgression stories delivered close to your inbox.

"He was falsely branded arsenic a traitor to his country, mislaid astatine slightest tens of millions of dollars of concern opportunities and aboriginal beingness earning potential, was maliciously prosecuted and spent important monies successful his ain defense, and has suffered and volition proceed to endure intelligence and affectional symptom for the remainder of his life," the suit states.

Through his attorneys, Flynn asserts that FBI agents and prosecutors moving for peculiar counsel Robert Mueller specifically "targeted" him arsenic an "insurance policy" to derail a imaginable Trump presidency, should helium triumph the 2016 election, due to the fact that Flynn was seen arsenic a menace to the entrenched "deep state."

"General Flynn — who already had a estimation arsenic a hands-on disruptor astatine DIA, who had publically excoriated the politicization of the quality community, and who had made wide his tendency to overhaul the nationalist information operation and the 'interagency process' — was a nonstop threat, not lone to the self-interest of entrenched quality bureaucracies and the national officials involved, but to exposing their anterior and ongoing efforts to derail and discredit President Trump," the ailment says.

Additionally, Flynn claims that his blameworthy plea was the effect of coercion by the peculiar counsel's office, asserting that prosecutors told him they would spell aft his lad if helium failed to participate into the agreement.

"When SCO [Special Counsel's Office] prosecutors threatened General Flynn's lad — recently a begetter himself, and besides guiltless of immoderate transgression — with national prosecution, unlawfully coercing General Flynn into a concealed side-deal to plead blameworthy successful speech for his son's freedom, they did truthful astatine the behest of the FBI leadership," the amended ailment states. "They did truthful to supply screen for their FBI colleagues and superiors, keeping the unlawful probe into President Trump alive, and hoping to 'flip' General Flynn against President Trump—or astatine slightest to make the nationalist cognition that helium had."

As Law&Crime previously reported, U.S. District Judge Mary S. Scriven, an appointee of George W. Bush, dismissed Flynn's suit past year, reasoning that the erstwhile wide had failed to found indispensable elements of malicious prosecution and maltreatment of process claims.

Regarding the malicious prosecution claim, Scriven said that due to the fact that DOJ prosecutors "do not suffice arsenic investigative oregon instrumentality enforcement officers" nether the controlling law, Flynn was required to amusement that the FBI exerted unit oregon power implicit the peculiar counsel's determination to prosecute him, thing helium explicitly failed to do.

Regarding the maltreatment of process claim, the tribunal explained that the "usual lawsuit of maltreatment of process is 1 of immoderate signifier of extortion" which requires the suspect showing "an improper usage of the judicial machinery."

"Plaintiff does not allege facts to amusement that immoderate FBI agents utilized the judicial machinery to get a effect different than specified arsenic would beryllium due successful the regular prosecution of the charge," Scriven wrote.

She besides recovered that Flynn's claims astir being coerced into taking a plea statement could not withstand judicial scrutiny.

"Additionally, though Plaintiff alleges helium was coerced into entering a plea statement nether the menace that his lad would beryllium prosecuted if helium did not cooperate, arsenic noted, Plaintiff alleges the SCO made these threats," the justice wrote. "Actions by SCO agents are not actionable due to the fact that the United States is entitled to sovereign immunity for claims based connected actions by the SCO. Thus, adjacent if these allegations were true, which the tribunal request not find for these purposes, the allegations bash authorities an actionable claim."

In the amended complaint, Flynn attempts to rectify the shortcomings of his archetypal filing by claiming that his prosecution was demanded by the "virulently anti-Trump leadership" astatine the FBI with a "complete deficiency of independence" from the SCO. He besides alleges that "newly discovered information" shows that the FBI "concealed" exculpatory evidence" from the SCO "in a mode that SCO prosecutors would not person adjacent know."

"Thus, adjacent ignoring the unit exerted by the investigative and instrumentality enforcement officers, the securing of the prosecution and the coercion exercised by the SCO, were straight linked to the actions of [the FBI]," the amended ailment says.

President Trump connected Sunday took to his ain societal media tract to say it was his "great honor" to pardon Flynn, claiming the wide was "savagely attacked by the Biden/Obama heavy state" and that his prosecution had since been "completely exposed for the FRAUD it is." The president did not notation that overmuch of the probe into Flynn took spot during Trump's archetypal term.

Trump successful 2017 besides confirmed that helium "had to occurrence General Flynn due to the fact that helium lied to the Vice President and the FBI," adding, "He has pled blameworthy to those lies."