A top Justice Department official responsible for approving multi-million-dollar taxpayer-funded payouts to disgraced FBI operatives involved in the debunked Russia-collusion narrative has now joined the legal front lines against President Donald J. Trump and his administration.

According to internal records reviewed by The Federalist, Brian Netter, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General under Joe Biden, personally authorized the controversial settlements awarded to ex-FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page — two key figures in the weaponization of the FBI against Trump during the 2016 election.

Strzok and Page, who were infamously exposed for their politically charged text messages plotting against then-candidate Trump, sued the DOJ over the release of their government-issued communications. Despite their central role in promoting the Hillary Clinton–funded Russia-collusion hoax, both individuals walked away with hefty settlements — Strzok pocketed $1.2 million and Page received $800,000, courtesy of the American taxpayer.

Following a Freedom of Information Act request by the Center to Advance Security in America, a DOJ official confirmed:

“We have identified Brian Netter, Deputy Assistant Attorney General as the individual that approved the settlement agreements.”

Netter, who served in Biden’s DOJ from 2021 to early 2025, has since taken the helm as Legal Director at Democracy Forward, a hard-left activist lawfare group formed in 2017 specifically to wage courtroom battles against Trump’s America First agenda.

The group boasts about suing the Trump administration over 100 times during his first term and remains one of the loudest institutional opponents of President Trump’s second-term policy resurgence.

Netter’s new organization is stacked with familiar Democrat operatives and power players. Marc Elias, the Democrat election attorney notorious for laundering Clinton campaign payments to fund the now-debunked Steele dossier, chairs the board. Elias also orchestrated the Democrats’ expansive — and heavily criticized — vote-by-mail push during the 2020 election cycle.

Other board members include:

• John Podesta, former Clinton campaign chairman
• Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff
• Maya Harris, Vice President Kamala Harris’ sister
• Mindy Myers, ex-head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

Clinton’s campaign was fined just $113,000 by the FEC for disguising payments for the fake dossier as “legal services.”

During his time at the DOJ, Netter also opposed President Trump’s legal effort to block the National Archives from handing over privileged executive records to the Pelosi-run January 6 Committee — a panel made up entirely of anti-Trump partisans.

Meanwhile, congressional Republicans who demanded transparency regarding the Strzok and Page payouts were repeatedly stonewalled by Biden’s DOJ. Officials claimed ignorance, refusing to name who approved the payments — until FOIA records outed Netter.

James Fitzpatrick, director of the Center to Advance Security in America, slammed the double standard:

“The American people are rightly concerned about the Biden Administration’s targeting of conservatives while their political allies were given special treatment. These settlements are a prime example of the outrageous abuse of power endured by the American people under Joe Biden.”

As Netter now leads Democrat legal warfare from outside government, the weaponization of federal institutions remains a live issue. A separate criminal referral has been filed against former FBI Director Christopher Wray for allegedly lying to Congress and obstructing investigations into anti-Catholic bias and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interference in the 2020 election.

Oversight Project President Mike Howell told Fox News Digital that Wray’s misleading testimony and cover-ups are emblematic of a two-tiered justice system that punishes political opponents while shielding Democrat operatives from accountability.