Appeals court orders Michael Flynn judge to respond to demand for dismissal of case against ex-Trump advisor

CNBC.com ^ | 5/21/2020 | Kevin Breuninger and Dan Mangan

[gwjack]

A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered the judge handling the criminal case of President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, to respond to a request by Flynn’s lawyers to dismiss the case.

The order came two days after Flynn’s lawyers asked the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to drop the case and assign any future court proceedings to another judge.

The Department of Justice two weeks earlier made the surprise move to abandon its own prosecution of Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration.

But U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan did not immediately grant the DOJ’s motion to dismiss its case. Instead, he appointed a former federal judge to argue against the request, and submitted a schedule to allow third parties to submit arguments in the case.

Flynn’s lawyers had argued to the appeals court that Sullivan’s moves “reveal his plan to continue the case indefinitely, rubbing salt in General Flynn’s open wound from the Government’s misconduct and threatening him with criminal contempt.”

Sullivan has 10 days to respond to the appeals court’s order. Sidney Powell, an attorney for Flynn, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the order.

Flynn had appeared in Sullivan’s courtroom in December 2018 to be sentenced, but the retired lieutenant general opted to delay the proceeding after Sullivan warned Flynn may face jail time if he was sentenced before completing his cooperation with then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators.

Months later, Flynn dismissed his legal team and hired Powell, a vocal Mueller critic, who soon began efforts to undo the criminal case. Powell accused prosecutors of withholding exculpatory information from Flynn, a claim that the Justice Department for months repeatedly denied.

The Justice Department’s request this month to dismiss the charge against Flynn was signed by Timothy Shea, the interim U.S. attorney for D.C. at the time, and not by any of the prosecutors who had handled Flynn’s case up to that point.

The dismissal request has been highly controversial. Former prosecutors say it smacked of favoritism toward an ally of Trump, and some have specifically accused Attorney General William Barr of manipulating the justice system to help the president. Trump has frequently criticized the case against Flynn.

[Hostage]

There has already been too much delay. Sullivan should have dismissed weeks ago. Every hour is more delay.

The order was not about the Writ of Mandamus. That is yet to be adjudicated.

The order was to warn Sullivan that he better have a good reason to do what he’s doing especially in light of the Fokker case. The appellate order was simply giving Sullivan a chance to dismiss the case before a draconian proceeding of removing him would start. I and others thought he would get the message and dismiss but others came and told him he was getting Beth Wilkerson, a very connected DC atty who the whole DC legal community knows is a force, not her per se but the powerful DC lawyer network around her. So we were surprised Sullivan didn’t dismiss.

Sullivan is not in control. Others are telling him what to do, actually they are doing what they want in his place. He’s just a front.

This Monday June 1, Sullivan’s handler will file with the appeals court as ordered. The filing will be reviewed. It might take a week or maybe a couple days. But that’[s not the end because in order to remove Sullivan from the case, the 3-judge appellate panel must take up the Writ of Mandamus. That means they schedule a hearing for Sydney Powell to present arguments, then they schedule Sullican’s lawyer to respond and argue. Then they need to deliberate and rule.

But there are other legal maneuvers the Sullivan lawyers might try in order to delay the Writ. For example, Sullivan’s attorney might request a hearing before the full judge panel, known as the “en banc” panel. That could take a week or more to arrange.

Now Sydney Powell is correct when she says the case is over. What that means is Sullivan has no argument to overcome the Writ of Mandamus which will remove him from the case. It may take a few weeks to get the Writ but there might be legal maneuvers delaying it further.

June 1 is not the ruling date. June 1 is simply a deadline for filing a response to the order. It’s not even tied to the Writ of Mandamus.

But EVENTUALLY there will be a ruling and it will result in removing Sullivan from the bench in the Flynn case via the Writ of Mandamus and I imagine there could be penalties and sanctions against Sullivan as well. I’d like to see them. But when the Writ is issued is a guessing game. I don’t know when it will be issued or even the soonest or latest.

So why is Sullivan doing this? He’s not doing it, others are doing it in his place.

Why are others doing this in Sullivan’s place?

We know they are going to lose. So why are they doing it?

They are doing it to buy time. They want to drag it out as long as possible using court rules for notices, appearances, continuances, amendments, motions. They are going to use every procedural trick in the court’s rules book to string it out for as long as possible. They may succeed with delay tactics, they might not.

They are trying to gain time before Flynn is allowed to bear witness. Once the case is dismissed.the Gag Order on General Flynn is removed and he is free to go after Obama, Hillary, and all the others with his testimony.

So the game is to delay dismissal for as long as they can. They’ve already caused weeks of delay, they want weeks more but in the end they lose.

What I am wondering is what would a few more weeks of delay buy them? Are they transferring illicit funds around the world expecting to escape justice? Are they hoping their mafia goons can put together the Mother of All False Flags to distract the whole world away from what Flynn is going to expose?

These people are ruthless. They will do anything to take and keep power.

[treetopsandroofs]

Thanks, that’s a better explanation than this will end on June 1 or 2, when I’ve seen SullivanCo have no respect for rules or procedures of law, and all indications that our domestic enemies want or need this to be protracted as long as possible.