In a legal filing Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice rejected a plea by the families of those who died in the two Boeing 737 MAX crashes to throw out the heavily criticized settlement it reached with the company last year. In doing so, the DOJ explained why it decided against criminally prosecuting Boeing. The government’s lawyers declined to identify a new Boeing flight control system on the MAX as a major factor in the crashes. That decision hints at why Boeing executives have declined to publicly admit full responsibility. The January 2021 settlement imposed a fine of $244 million on B…