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Federal judge dismisses Boeing felony charges despite victims’ families opposition to $1.1B settlement deal
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A federal judge ruled in favor of the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday, dismissing felony charges against aircraft giant Boeing in relation to two commercial plane crashes that claimed the lives of 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
Judge Reed O’Connor accepted the DOJ’s motion to dismiss in the Northern District of Texas.
Boeing, which previously agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud the government, made a deal with the Trump administration in May in return for the charges — tied to the Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes in October 2018 and March 2019 — being dropped.
O’Connor, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, said that despite some victims’ families’ opposition, the government did not act with bad faith, provided conclusory reasons for its dismissal, and satisfied its obligations under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, Politico reported.
The non-prosecution agreement requires Boeing to pay more than $1.1 billion in fines, more than $455 million to strengthen the company’s compliance, safety and quality programs, and an additional $445 million for the crash victims’ families, a DOJ spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
BOEING PAYING $1.1B AS DOJ DISMISSES CRIMINAL FRAUD CASE; FAMILIES OF VICTIMS IN CRASHES SET TO OBJECT TO DEAL
The scene of an Ethiopian Airlines flight crash near Bishoftu, or Debre Zeit, south of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
«On top of the financial investments, Boeing must continue to improve the effectiveness of its anti-fraud compliance and ethics program and retain an independent compliance consultant,» the spokesperson wrote in a statement to Fox News Digital.
O’Connor noted it disregards the need for the company to be monitored by an unbiased consultant, as Boeing can choose who it hires, and said he understood families may be disappointed the agreement «fails to secure the necessary accountability to ensure the safety of the flying public,» according to the report.
Tracy Brammeier, partner of Clifford Law Offices who serves on the plaintiff’s team, said there would be a quick appeal of O’Connor’s Thursday ruling.
«The judge recognizes there is a miscarriage of justice on the part of the government’s decision not to prosecute the case, and that this was not in the best interest of the public, which the government serves,» Brammeier wrote in a statement to Fox News Digital. «Unfortunately, he feels the power to right this wrong is limited by legal precedent. The families are disappointed by the outcome but will act quickly to protect the interests of the families and the public on appeal.»
NTSB ISSUES URGENT SAFETY BULLETIN ABOUT ENGINES FOUND IN SOME BOEING 737 MAX JETS
People work at the scene of an Ethiopian Airlines flight crash near Bishoftu, or Debre Zeit, south of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene)
Three cases involving families of victims in the 2019 crash were settled Wednesday after jury selection, including a case on behalf of a 28-year-old mother from Kenya who left behind a daughter and her parents, Clifford Law Offices wrote in a news release.
The other two cases that settled were that of a 38-year-old father of seven from Yemen and Kenya, and a 30-year-old father of three from the UK and Kenya, who left behind a pregnant wife, according to Clifford Law Offices.
Flight ET-302 crashed in March 2019 shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia, heading to Kenya and killing all 157 on board.
According to the attorneys, nearly a dozen cases related to the two crashes remain unresolved.
A Boeing 737 MAX jet lands in Seattle after a test flight to evaluate Boeing’s proposed changes to the automated flight control system on the MAX, a system that activated erroneously on two flights that crashed, killing 346 people. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
A DOJ spokesperson told Fox News Digital «victims are at the heart of the Department’s mission» and the Boeing case is no exception.
«Rather than allow for protracted litigation, this agreement provides finality for the victims and requires Boeing to act now,» the spokesperson wrote in a statement. «As the Court recognized, the Department in good faith complied with its statutory obligations and met extensively with the crash victims’ families. While they are all experiencing grief, and nothing will diminish their losses, the victims have expressed a broad set of views regarding the resolution, ranging from support to disagreement. Ultimately, in applying the facts, the law, and Department policy, we are confident that this resolution is the most just outcome.»
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A Boeing spokesperson told Fox News Digital the company is «committed to honoring the obligations of our agreement with the Department of Justice … [and] to continuing the significant efforts we have made as a company to strengthen our safety, quality, and compliance programs.»
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Israeli forces struck a meeting of Iran’s Supreme Council on Tuesday as officials gathered to choose a successor to the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a senior Israeli official told Fox News.
«Israel struck while they were counting the votes for the appointment of the supreme leader,» the official said.
The strike came just south of Tehran as Iran continued targeting Israeli population centers, with Israel signaling that continued attacks on civilians would not be tolerated.
Israeli officials believe multiple Iranian officials responsible for counting the votes in the succession process were killed in the strike. The officials were not among the ruling clerics or top mullahs, but the attack marked a substantial escalation as Israel continued expanding its target set inside Iran.
Smoke rises over Tehran, Iran, on March 2, 2026, after explosions were reported in the city during the joint U.S.-Israel operation against Iran. (Contributor/Getty Images)
The strike underscored the depth of Israeli intelligence penetration inside Tehran and marked one of the most dramatic escalations yet in the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign aimed at dismantling Iran’s political and military leadership from the top down.
It came as Iran’s leadership structure appeared increasingly hollowed out.
More than 40 of Iran’s most senior leaders — including Khamenei — have been killed since the operation began, with 49 eliminated in the opening salvo of Operation Epic Fury early Saturday, fracturing the regime’s command structure and dealing a crippling blow to its military leadership and command-and-control networks.
Israeli analysts estimated that more than 1,000 enemy combatants have been killed inside Iran since the United States launched Operation Epic Fury and Israel launched its parallel campaign, Operation Roaring Lion, on Saturday. The estimate came from Israel’s latest battle damage assessment, according to a senior Israeli official.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu framed the conflict as part of a broader effort to neutralize Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear ambitions.
KEY MILITARY SITES TARGETED INSIDE IRAN AS PART OF COORDINATED US-ISRAELI STRIKES
Pro-Iran protesters brandish weapons and signs depicting the late Iranian leader Ali Khamenei at a protest in Yemen. (Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)
«With these ballistic missiles, these weapons of mass death, these weapons, they bombed all these countries,» Netanyahu said. «And when they developed these ballistic missiles, they’ll try and eventually they’ll bomb you. This is what President Trump understood.»
Vice President JD Vance said the administration had set a clear, limited objective for the operation.
«There’s just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multi-year conflict, with no clear end in sight and no clear objective,» Vance said. «He’s defined that objective as Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and has to commit long-term to never trying to rebuild the nuclear capability.»
The joint U.S.-Israel assault entered its fourth day Tuesday, with no signs of slowing down.
A satellite image from Planet Labs shows a plume of smoke above Tehran, Iran, on March 1, 2026. (Planet Labs PBC)
President Donald Trump said the plan was ahead of schedule following the early elimination of Iran’s top leaders.
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The U.S. urged Americans to leave 14 countries across the Middle East as Iran’s counterattacks intensified. The State Department also closed two embassies in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The Gulf Cooperation Council warned Iran it would take «all necessary measures,» including possible military action, in response to Tehran’s missile and drone attacks.
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A group of two dozen state attorneys general sued President Donald Trump Thursday in an effort to block his new 10% tariffs from taking force, a move that all but ensures Trump’s newly revived tariff regime will end up back before the federal courts for the second time in nearly as many years.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in the Court of International Trade by attorneys general from 24 states, including New York, Oregon, California and Arizona.
The state attorneys general argued in the lawsuit that Trump lacks the authority to impose the 10% tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.
They described the effort as an attempt to «sidestep» last month’s 6-3 Supreme Court ruling, which blocked Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to unilaterally impose his 10% global tariff announced last April.
A protester holds a sign as the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on President Trump’s tariffs Nov. 5, 2025. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Trump responded to the ruling by immediately invoking Section 122 to keep the 10% tariffs in place in the near term. He also said then that the administration is planning to increase the import duties from 10% to 15% for certain countries.
In the lawsuit, the state AGs said Trump «has made clear that he is going to impose worldwide tariffs by any means necessary» and argued that the effort is «an exercise of completely unrestrained executive power.»
«As with his unlawful use of IEEPA, the President has once again exercised tariff authority that he does not have — involving a statute that does not authorize the tariffs he has imposed — to upend the constitutional order and bring chaos to the global economy,» they added.
Next steps in the case are unclear, though the new lawsuit is likely to be met with fierce opposition from the White House and Justice Department.
Trump has continued to embrace tariffs as the signature economic policy of his second White House term. Trump, who previously billed himself the «Tariff Man,» has described the issue as «life or death» for the U.S. economy.
Last April, Trump declared a national trade emergency to invoke IEEPA, citing the law as a means to address trade imbalances, reduce deficits with key trading partners and boost domestic manufacturing and production.
FEDERAL JUDGE BLOCKS 5 TRUMP TARIFF EXECUTIVE ORDERS
President Donald Trump walks past Supreme Court justices during a State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Two federal courts — the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit — previously blocked Trump’s use of IEEPA to enact his tariffs, prompting the administration to kick the case to the Supreme Court last year for emergency relief. (The Manhattan-based Court of International Trade ruled last year that Trump, as commander in chief, does not have «unbounded authority» to impose tariffs under the emergency law.)
Lower courts had pressed the Justice Department to explain why Trump invoked IEEPA when other, more narrowly tailored statutes enacted by Congress more specifically address tariffs, including laws that cap tariffs at certain levels or set timeframes subject to congressional review.
Section 122 tariffs can remain in place for up to 150 days without congressional approval, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed on the Senate floor last week that the Democratic caucus would not approve an extension of the broad import duties.
Legally, the administration could have its work cut out for it as well.
Some economists — as well as the state AGs — argue that there is a difference between a traditional balance of payment deficit and the trade deficit between the U.S. and other countries.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City March 28. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
«Contrary to the Section 122 Proclamation, a trade deficit is not a balance of payments deficit,» the states argued in their lawsuit.
Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Michigan, told Fox News Digital in an interview last year that Trump’s focus on the trade «deficit» is in fact based on a common misconception.
«We have a dollar deficit, but we have a stuff surplus,» he said.
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«What that means is we sell China a small amount of stuff, and they sell us a large amount of stuff,» Wolfers explained. For every dollar bill that goes to China, the U.S. gets something for it that Americans want to buy, like T-shirts.
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