Posted on 05/23/2020 2:46:59 PM PDT by CaptainK
Veteran trial lawyer Beth Wilkinson is helping guide U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan as a federal appeals court questions his plan to probe the U.S. Justice Department’s decision to dismiss the case against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn despite his admission he lied to the FBI.
Sullivan refused to immediately dismiss the charge against Flynn, a retired Army general who served for just weeks in Trump’s White House, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is now weighing whether the longtime Washington federal trial judge overstepped his authority.
The appeals court set a June 1 deadline for Sullivan to respond to a petition from Flynn’s lawyers that seeks the immediate dismissal of the case. Sullivan, meanwhile, has appointed an outside lawyer, John Gleeson, a former federal judge in Brooklyn, to make arguments against the Justice Department’s bid to ditch the prosecution. Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his communications with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., but he later hired new lawyers to help him withdraw his acknowledgement of wrongdoing.
Wilkinson, a co-founder of the litigation boutique Wilkinson Walsh, confirmed Saturday she had been retained by Sullivan, who has served on Washington’s federal trial court since 1994. The Washington Post first reported Wilkinson’s role advocating for the judge.
Wilkinson has long been in the spotlight in Washington legal circles and beyond as a successful defense-side trial lawyer advocating for major U.S. companies. She left the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in 2016 to start the boutique, which has offices in Washington, New York and Los Angeles.
She has frequently taken on high-profile assignments. In 2018, she was hired by Brett Kavanaugh, then a U.S. Supreme Court nominee, to help shepherd him through confirmation proceedings at which he had been accused of a decades-old sexual misconduct allegation. Kavanaugh, who denied the claim, was confirmed to the high court.
More recently, Wilkinson was retained by Summer Zervos in a suit in New York state court that accuses Trump of lying in his denials that he did not grope and kiss her without consent in 2007. The case is pending.
In the D.C. Circuit now, Wilkinson is counsel to Cheryl Mills, a former aide to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a dispute over a deposition in a public-records case. One of Sullivan’s colleagues on the bench, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, said the plaintiff—the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch—could depose Clinton and Mills.
.Sullivan’s move to appoint Gleeson, now a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton, to oppose the Justice Department’s move to dismiss was seen by some observers as an assertion of independence of the courts as a co-equal branch of government. Still others said Sullivan had assumed too powerful a role, and that he should have dismissed the case at the Justice Department’s request.
Legal scholars are divided over how much power Sullivan holds to scrutinize the Justice Department’s charging decisions. Federal rules do not allow prosecutors to unilaterally dismiss any criminal case. They need “leave of court” before a charge can be withdrawn.
At one time, Flynn was prepared to be punished, but he agreed to further cooperate with the special counsel’s Russia investigation in an effort to secure a non-jail sentence. During Flynn’s first scheduled sentencing, Sullivan raised the prospect that Flynn might go to prison for lying to federal agents.
Timothy Shea, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and a former close adviser to Barr, asked Sullivan to dismiss the case against Flynn on the ground that prosecutors no longer believe there was a strong basis to justify the FBI’s 2017 interview that is central to the false-statements claim. Former Justice Department officials have disputed the government’s claim there was no ground to interview Flynn.
“Keeping Flynn quiet must be of huge importance to the coup.”
I think you’re right. That gag order he’s under: Assume that becomes null once the case is dismissed? “They” probably are fearful of what’s going to be disclosed once that dam bursts.
Response will be filled June 1. The appellate panel will take a week at least to review, then schedule a hearing.
The hearing is heard towards the end of June. Expect democrats to insist on calling supporting witnesses.
Once the hearing is complete, the appellate panel takes up the matter of the Writ.
The Writ could come in August.
The delay gives the Deep State time to launch a distraction.
The Supreme Court hires people for many cases. They are not experts in many things. They hire them as advisers and they often hire them to actually figure out technical issues. For example, I recall a border dispute between Maryland and Virginia about 10 or 20 years ago. The Supreme Court hired a team to figure it out and they made a recommendation and the Court went with the recommendation.
Go stuff yourself.
I know the godd@m response due date is June 1.
Read #122 before you jump into my analysis with your odious brainfarts.
Jenna Ellis
@JennaEllisEsq
·
2h
Sullivan is now a one-man circus as judge, prosecutor, AND defendant in the same case.
So many in political circles in WDC and elsewhere are corrupt , compromised and/or without integrity .
You are correct but the aim is not to overcome the Writ of Mandamus.
The aim is use procedural tactics to drag out the proceedings as long as possible.
A delay gives Obama-Clinton Deep State time to launch countermoves.
This is hilarious, and I have to wonder...
...how many times does this happen, where a dummy judge issues a dummy order, gets called out by a higher court, and hires a lawyer to fight it???
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan STINKS.
The question is did he approach her or was she “sent” in to do the clean up?
CJ Roberts and friends will just have to swalwell and realize that only one of the three Appellate judges is an "Obama judge." (haha)
If the Appellate panel is inclined against Sullivan's delay tactics, I believe they won't let Gleeson or any other "amicus" do anything, so either they'll temporarily enjoin further activities of Sullivan's court until their ruling, or simply issue the Writ, ordering Sullivan to grant the dismissal that DOJ's Shea requested.
two words andrew weissman
If the courtroom has a ceiling fan, reinforce it strongly. Hang the judge from it. Turn the fan on. Have trial jurors play bust the piñata. Make sure the replacement judge watches the fun.
At this point it is not clear in what capacity Wilkerson has been hired for. None of the articles or twitter feeds I've read mention the hire is a special master...
Judge Sullivan's reply is required by June 1, regardless of who writes it. Since there is no provision for a hearing or oral argument the decision will likely be made shortly after the first of the month.
Well here is the deal. Any judge that cannot defend their own positions has no business being a judge. The circuit court should totally de nigh him from using any lawyer. Did the judge use a lawyer when he issued all of his decisions in the case? Now he needs help explaining why he made the decisions he made. That just does not fly with me. He is admitting that he does not really know. He was just winging it.
“Because he wants a legal mind better than his own to put forward the absolutely best case possible? “
So the judge is admitting that he has no business making ruling of law because he has no idea what he is doing or why he is doing it. So then every decision he ever made should be thrown out.
Funny thing is that FLYNN IS A DEMOCRAT.
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