Latest in 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.
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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.
Michael Flynn, federal prosecutors and U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan on Wednesday, June 10 all filed reply briefs with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit regarding whether the appeals court should force Sullivan to drop the case against President Trump’s former national security advisor.
Flynn’s attorneys and the Department of Justice both argued the D.C. Circuit should compel Sullivan to grant prosecutors’ motion to withdraw charges, while Sullivan argued the case is not yet ready for appellate review.
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.”
The Justice Department on Monday, June 1 filed a brief urging the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to force district court judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. That move came after the Justice Department moved to drop a charge against Flynn, who previously pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador, and Sullivan declined to immediately abandon the case.
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.
On Friday, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe declassified and released the transcripts of the December 2016 calls between former national security adviser Michael Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The calls are at the center of the ongoing criminal case again Flynn.
If, after careful review, the judge finds that the government’s motion to dismiss the case against Michael Flynn is tainted, he has a duty to deny that motion.
The Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is flawed in many ways, but one of its weakest arguments is that the investigation of Flynn was not properly “predicated.”