Michael Flynn

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals asks whether it should order a district judge to stop, stand up and salute when Attorney General William Barr tells him to drop the case against Michael Flynn.

The Justice Department argues that Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure gives the judge in Michael Flynn’s case little leeway in dismissing the case against him. New research shows that the history behind this argument is wrong.

John Gleeson on June 10 filed a brief arguing the government’s motion to dismiss charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn should be dismissed. Gleeson, a former U.S. district judge, was appointed by the court as an amicus curiae on May 13, 2020, to present arguments in opposition to the government’s motion to dismiss. In the brief, Gleeson argues “the Government’s statement of reasons for seeking dismissal is pretextual” and “there is clear evidence of a gross abuse of prosecutorial power.”

On June 1, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia submitted a brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit outlining his rationale for declining to immediately dismiss the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn after the Justice Department moved to drop their charges. A panel of judges on the D.C. Circuit had ordered Sullivan on May 21 to respond to an emergency request by Flynn that the appeals court force him to drop the case.