Only in a fantasy narrative wholly detached from any cognizable version of reality could one not see the settlement as the United States Department of Justice, or Attorney General Pam Bondi to be more specific, handing over taxpayer funds to a Trump=aligned criminal-turned-retconned victim to the tune of $1.25 million as an act of  flagrant corruption. Granted, that’s not a huge sum, particularly in light of the sums that will be paid by Bondi to victims-of-injustice Trump and his family, but it’s still nothing to sneeze at.

But mostly, the notion that the United States paid off Michael Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to obstruction for lying to investigators, after being fired by Trump as National Security Advisor for lying to Vice President Mike Pence, and ultimately pardoned by Trump in the waning hours of his first term, is such a flagrant act of corruption as to be absurd, but for the fact that it happened. The Attorney General of the United States agreed to give $1.25 million to Flynn, who pleaded guilty and was pardoned, for being maliciously prosecuted. Nope, it actually happened.

The Russia investigation, which unfolded during much of Mr. Trump’s first term in office, ultimately determined that his 2016 campaign had not conspired with Russia to help him win the White House, but explicitly did not exonerate him on separate accusations of obstructing justice. The inquiry was first led by James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, and then after he was fired by Mr. Trump, by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who died last Friday.

Needless to say, Trump hates Comey and Mueller, even in death, for his perceived wrongs done to him. And since he hates them, he hates anything and everything they did, including their investigation and prosecution of Flynn.

Mr. Trump has long complained that the F.B.I. mistreated Mr. Flynn, even though Mr. Trump fired him weeks into his first presidency for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations with the Russian diplomat. In late 2020, after he lost that year’s election to Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Flynn, bringing an end to the drawn-out legal saga of his prosecution.

A pardon is supposed to be an act of Executive mercy, relieving a person of burden of guilt and punishment. As a legal matter, the pardon meant Flynn was innocent. As a factual matter, it changed nothing about what he did. And what he did was plead guilty to the charges.

But the end of his criminal case was in essence the beginning of Mr. Flynn’s efforts to sue the Justice Department in a claim that originally sought $50 million.

He accused federal law enforcement of opening “a baseless investigation” into him and ultimately filing “unjustified criminal charges.”

This wasn’t the first time the Trump DoJ decided to pay off someone for whom there was no chance of prevailing on the claim.

Last year, the department paid nearly $5 million to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the relatives of Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran who was killed by the police during the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In the fantasy MAGA narrative, Babbitt was a heroine rather than a person who persisted in climbing through a broken door window backed by a mob into the House Chamber after being told to stop or she would be shot. She didn’t stop. She was shot and killed. This thrilled the MAGA faithful, for whom Ashley Babbitt’s death was a cause célèbre. And it’s unlikely it will be the last time.

Mr. Trump himself has filed claims demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the two federal prosecutions in which he faced separate charges of trying overturn the 2020 election and illegally holding on to reams of classified documents after he left office in 2021.

According to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, if Trump directs Pam Bondi to pay him off, Bessent will sign the check as he works for Trump and does what Trump says. That both bases were at worst well-founded, and that neither case ended in exoneration, is of no consequence. When Trump’s pocket judge, Aileen Cannon, dismissed the classified documents case, it was based upon her bizarre holding that “deranged” Special Counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed, not that Trump wasn’t guilty as sin.

It’s one thing that Flynn got away with it, as being pardoned is one of the few acts is entirely within the unreviewable power of the president. He was pardoned. Flynn can walk the streets a free and innocent man as far as the law is concerned. But that does not mean that the tax dollars we citizens pay should be taken from the treasury to be given to him like a gift for his loyalty to Trump as if he was a victim.

But it’s just $1,25 million, so what’s the big deal? Granted, it’s likely that this will be a pittance compared to the potential of a flagrantly conflicted payoff to Trump  himself. And it’s a pittance compared to the restitution unpaid by the series of convicted un-Somali fraudsters who have been pardoned by Trump after substantial donations to him and his causes. Or even the $200 billion atop the trillion for the Department of Defense to prosecute a war in Iran that we won in the first hour but inexplicably continues nonetheless.

The fundamental notion that the United States Attorney General is choosing to pay off Trump’s friends, much as it’s choosing to prosecute Trump’s enemies against whom they can’t manage to get indictments, is as clear an act of corruption as can be. But isn’t ex-General Michael Flynn a poor victim of the legal system deserving of a pay off? Bondi says so, which means Trump says so, and if Trump says so, it must be so. This is why we can’t have nice things.