According to a new court filing by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn's lawyers, the U.S. Appeals Court in Washington, D.C. should order Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the case Flynn has already pleaded guilty to.
The Department of Justice decided that it would dismiss the case against Flynn saying that the lies Flynn told weren't relevant to the case, which isn't what the law says about lying to the FBI. Flynn has confessed twice to lying under oath, which is a crime.
Still, Attorney General Bill Barr sought to dismiss the charges and demanded that the presiding judge in the case let it all go.
Judge Sullivan, however, refused, instead appointing an independent and retired judge to serve as a kind of DOJ proxy since the Justice Department has moved to the defense side. He is tasked with concluding whether Flynn should be held in criminal contempt.
According to the filing, Flynn's lawyers want Judge Sullivan to "disregarded the constitutional imperative" of a federal judge by failing to grant Barr's request and by appointing former Judge John Gleeson to serve as "amicus curiae."
"Petitioner respectfully requests that this Court order the district court immediately to (1) grant the Justice Department's Motion to Dismiss; (2) vacate its order appointing amicus curiae; and (3) reassign the case to another district judge as to any further proceedings," Flynn's lawyer wrote in the court filing.
"Binding Supreme Court and Circuit precedent squarely foreclose the district court's determination to continue the prosecution of General Flynn," the filing also says. "The district court order appointing an amicus is both unauthorized and bespeaks a disturbing lack of appreciation of the court's limited role when confronted with a motion to dismiss by the Government in a criminal case."
Flynn's lead attorney, Sidney Powell, also lambasted Judge Gleeson as an independent jurist because of a recent op-ed he wrote for the Washington Post about the Flynn case. According to Powell, the editorial "excoriat[ed] the Department of Justice's Motion to Dismiss as 'smack[ing] of impropriety,' of attempting to make the court 'a party to corruption,' and of 'reek[ing] of improper political influence.'"
Thus far, 1,000 former federal prosecutors have signed onto a brief saying they believe the Flynn dismissal is a miscarriage of justice.
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