Report: Boeing asks Trump admin to weaken penalties in 737 Max crash case

Boeing is trying to withdraw a plea agreement and obtain more lenient treatment from the Trump administration in a case involving two deadly 737 Max crashes, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

Boeing previously agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States. Boeing could still plead guilty but face weaker penalties than it agreed to last year if the Justice Department and a federal judge agree.

Trump’s Department of Justice “is reviewing numerous pending criminal cases that haven’t yet gone to trial or been approved by courts,” and “Boeing stands to benefit from fresh eyes at Trump’s Justice Department, which is inclined to at least modify parts of the agreement,” the WSJ wrote, citing people familiar with the matter. “Allowing Boeing to rescind its plea agreement, or lightening the company’s punishment, would mark one of the most prominent examples of the Trump administration’s lighter-touch approach to some white-collar enforcement.”

In July 2024, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a criminal charge and pay $243.6 million for violating a 2021 agreement that was spurred by 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed a combined 346 people.

Boeing had avoided prosecution in January 2021 when it signed a deferred prosecution agreement and agreed to pay $2.5 billion in penalties and compensation to airline customers and the victims’ families. But in May 2024, the Justice Department said it determined that Boeing violated the deferred prosecution agreement “by failing to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the US fraud laws throughout its operations.”

Judge rejected previous plea deal

Boeing’s plea deal was for a charge of defrauding the Federal Aviation Administration Aircraft Evaluation Group, and the plea agreement was submitted for review in US District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Judge Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, rejected the plea deal in December because it “requires the parties to consider race when hiring the independent monitor” and because Boeing wouldn’t actually have to comply with the monitor’s recommendations.