DOJ Official Who OK’d $2M Payouts To Russia Hoax Lovers Now Running Anti-Trump Lawfare Group
The Biden Justice Department official who greenlit $2 million in taxpayer-funded payouts to disgraced FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page has resurfaced at the helm of a Democrat-aligned group dedicated to suing Donald Trump into oblivion, records show.

According to documents obtained by The Federalist, Brian Netter, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General under Merrick Garland, personally approved the eye-popping settlements. Strzok, who infamously plotted the “insurance policy” against Trump while investigating the Clinton campaign’s Russia collusion hoax, pocketed $1.2 million. His mistress, ex-FBI lawyer Page, scored $800,000 [reeee sexist bribe gap!].
The duo had sued the DOJ, whining that the release of their scandalous, government-resource–written texts violated their privacy. Instead of fighting, the Biden team cut them fat checks – at taxpayer expense.
Now, Netter has taken his talents to Democracy Forward, where he serves as legal director. The left-wing group, proudly launched in 2017 to fight Trump with endless litigation, brags about taking the 45th president to court more than 100 times. The New York Times even hailed them last fall: “Liberal Legal Group Positions Itself as a Top Trump Administration Foe.”
The group’s board reads like a Who’s Who of Democratic Party royalty: Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, Biden’s ex–chief of staff Ron Klain, Vice President Kamala Harris’ sister Maya Harris, and Democratic strategist Mindy Myers. We’re sure Podesta is dazzling them with his famous walnut sauce on pasta and whatnot.
At the top sits Marc Elias, the Democratic super-lawyer notorious for bankrolling the Clinton campaign’s Russia collusion scheme through his law firm and masterminding the chaotic 2020 mail-in ballot expansion. Clinton’s campaign was fined just $113,000 for disguising opposition research as “legal services.”
Netter’s ties to Democratic power brokers run even deeper. He’s married to Karen Dunn, a high-powered Democratic lawyer who prepped Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris for presidential debates. The 2009 wedding? Officiated by none other than Merrick Garland.
Dunn, a former Hillary confidante widely floated for White House Counsel if Clinton had won in 2016, co-founded a law firm with Jeannie Rhee, a Mueller probe alum who helped keep the Russia hoax alive. They later hired yet another Mueller hand, Rush Atkinson.
Both Netter and Dunn clerked for liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, while Dunn also clerked for Garland on the D.C. Circuit.
Congressional Republicans had long tried to learn who authorized the cushy settlements for Strzok and Page but were stonewalled by Biden’s DOJ, which claimed it didn’t know.
“The American people are rightly concerned about the Biden Administration’s targeting of conservatives while their political allies were given special treatment,” said James Fitzpatrick, director of the Center to Advance Security in America. “These settlements are a prime example of the outrageous abuse of power endured by the American people under Joe Biden.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/01/2025 – 15:20