Former Judge's New Brief Blasts 'Corrupt' DOJ Move To Dismiss Michael Flynn Charges
A searing new legal brief rips the “corrupt” and “politically motivated” move by the Department of Justice to dismiss criminal charges against the Trump administration’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
“In the United States, Presidents do not orchestrate pressure campaigns to get the Justice Department to drop charges against defendants who have pleaded guilty — twice, before two different judges — and whose guilt is obvious,” stated the friend-of-the-court brief by retired federal Judge John Gleeson.
Gleeson was appointed to examine the case and write the brief by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in the wake of the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss charges against Flynn.
Flynn pleaded guilty three years ago to lying to the FBI about secret negotiations with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. weeks before Donald Trump’s election. When Flynn later changed his mind, the DOJ suddenly decided to support him against a case their own prosecutors had won.
“To describe the Government’s Motion to Dismiss as irregular would be a study in understatement,” Gleeson wrote.
He slammed Attorney General William Barr’s motion as “riddled with legal and factual error.” The government’s failure to “defend its own ... reasoning is matched by its silence on the subject of abuse of power,” Gleeson noted. “The Government makes little effort to refute (or even address) the evidence exposing its abuses.”
Gleeson attributed pressure from Trump for the “corrupt and politically motivated favor for the president’s friend and ally.” For the court to accede to the DOJ’s demand would “reduce the Court to a rubber stamp,” he concluded.
Gleeson not only strongly argued against dismissing the case, he also urged that Flynn should be punished for additional “perjurious” statements during earlier proceedings in the case.
Sullivan has set a hearing for Sept. 29 to hear arguments from Flynn, Gleeson and...
