Today is the Day… General Flynn could [SHOULD] go Free.
Washington Post By Ann E. Marimow
The legal and political battle over the Justice Department’s effort to drop its prosecution of President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn returns to court Tuesday.
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will decide whether U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan must immediately sign off on the government’s move to undo Flynn’s guilty plea.
A divided three-judge panel in late June ordered Sullivan to close the case and said he was wrong to appoint a retired federal judge to argue against the government’s position. But the full court, sitting Tuesday with 10 judges, agreed to take a second look at the unusual case that tests the power of the judiciary to check the executive branch.
In May, Sullivan refused to go along with the government’s request to drop charges against Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador in Washington before Trump took office in 2017. Instead, Sullivan appointed retired New York judge John Gleeson to oppose the Justice Department’s request.
In response, Flynn’s attorneys made the unusual move to petition the D.C. Circuit to intervene midstream and force the judge to toss Flynn’s case. Sullivan defended his position that the court has authority to investigate whether dismissing the case is in the public interest, and hired a high-profile and politically experienced trial lawyer to argue his reasons.
