WASHINGTON—Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz backed the families of passengers killed in two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes and sharply criticizing the Justice Department’s deferred prosecution agreement with Boeing.
The $2.5 billion Boeing deferred prosecution agreement, a type of corporate plea agreement, was reached in January 2021 near the end of former President Donald Trump’s administration. It capped a 21-month government investigation into the design and development of the 737 MAX following two crashes, in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019, that killed a total of 346 people.
Families of some of those killed in the two crashes asked Texas-based U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor to declare that the deferred prosecution agreement was negotiated in violation of their rights as crime victims under federal law and determine appropriate remedies.
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