Front Porch Punditry
»
News
»
Breaking News
»
U.S. appeals court orders judge to dismiss case against former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn
U.S. appeals court orders judge to dismiss case against former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn Published Wed, Jun 24 202010:20 AM EDT
Updated Moments Ago
A federal appeals court ordered a lower-court judge to dismiss the criminal case against Michael Flynn, who briefly served as President Donald Trump’s first national security advisor.
The appeals court ruling came in response to a request from Flynn’s lawyers, after Washington, D.C., federal district court Judge Emmet Sullivan did not promptly grant the Justice Department’s motion seeking to dismiss the case.
Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017.
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered a lower-court judge to dismiss the criminal case against Michael Flynn, who briefly served as President Donald Trump’s first national security advisor.
The appeals court ruling came in response to a request from Flynn’s lawyers, after Washington, D.C., federal district court Judge Emmet Sullivan did not promptly grant the Justice Department’s motion seeking to dismiss the case.
Instead, Sullivan had appointed a lawyer to make arguments to him about why the case should not be tossed out.
Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. But since last year, he and his new lawyer, Sidney Powell had sought to retract his plea.
The U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia Circuit, in its ruling, said that the dismissal request in this case was not the kind of “unusual case where a more searching inquiry is justified” before granting a dismissal.
The ruling, written by Trump appointee Neomi Rao, also noted that the executive branch of government has “primacy over charging decisions.”
Because of that, “we grant the petition for mandamus in part and order the district court to grant the government’s Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss the charges against Flynn,” the court said.
Rao ruled it was appropriate to grant a the so-called writ of mandamus requested by Flynn’s lawyers because Sullivan’s steps to slow-walk his decision on whether to dismiss the case would “will result in specific harms to the exercise of the Executive Branch’s exclusive prosecutorial power.”
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
Michael Flynn Wins; D.C. Circuit Orders Case Dismissed Kristina Wong 24 Jun 2020
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled 2-1 Wednesday that a lower court must grant a request by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to drop its case against former National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.).
Flynn won his request for a writ of mandamus ordering Judge Emmet Sullivan to grant the DOJ’s motion last month.
The appeals court order states:
Zitat Upon consideration of the emergency petition for a writ of mandamus, the responses thereto, and the reply, the briefs of amici curiae in support of the parties, and the argument by counsel, it is ORDERED that Flynn’s petition for a writ of mandamus be granted in part; the District Court is directed to grant the government’s Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss; and the District Court’s order appointing an amicus is hereby vacated as moot, in accordance with the opinion of the court filed herein this date.
The appeals court judges in the case were: Karen Henderson, Robert Wilkins and Neomi Rao. Wilkins is a former President Obama appointee, Rao is a President Trump appointee, and Henderson is a former President George H.W. Bush appointee.
Zitat BREAKING – DC Circuit Court of Appeals rules Michael Flynn case can end and DOJ’s request to drop charges be accepted by the federal district court. pic.twitter.com/qPWmyZlO6M
— Darren Samuelsohn (@dsamuelsohn) June 24, 2020
Rao states in her majority decision:
Zitat [T]his is plainly not the rare case where further judicial inquiry is warranted. To begin with, Flynn agrees with the government’s motion to dismiss, and there has been no allegation that the motion reflects prosecutorial harassment. Additionally, the government’s motion includes an extensive discussion of newly discovered evidence casting Flynn’s guilt into doubt.
Rao’s opinion also makes a constitutional point: “The circumstances of this case demonstrate that mandamus is appropriate to prevent the judicial usurpation of executive power.”
The order also prevents Judge Sullivan from hearing amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs in the case. Sullivan had appointed retired Judge John Gleeson, who had criticized the Trump administration, to argue against dismissing the case.
The court did deny Flynn’s request to have the case reassigned from Sullivan to another judge.
The ruling by the appeals court is a major victory for Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell, and a defeat for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, former FBI Director James Comes, and “deep state” partisans who had sought to convict Flynn in their pursuit of false allegations of “Russian collusion” against President Donald Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign.
Flynn had pleaded guilty of lying to the FBI in 2017, though the FBI itself believed he had not done so. He was allegedly pressured to offer a guilty plea. The FBI was forced to reveal exculpatory evidence after Attorney General William Barr assigned U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Jensen to review irregularities in the case earlier this year.