Stating the Obvious

Retired federal judge John Gleeson, the special master brought in by judge Emmett Sullivan to investigate the DoJ's attempt to dismiss charges against Michael Flynn, has come out with his report, and it's a doozy.

In it he calls the decision a, "Corrupt and politically motivated favor unworthy of our justice system," in addition to noting that it is, "A gross abuse of prosecutorial power."

It's nice that someone has finally called William Barr corrupt.

Barr makes Nixon Attorney General John Mitchell look like Perry Mason:

A retired federal judge accused the Justice Department on Friday of yielding to a pressure campaign led by President Trump in its bid to dismiss the prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to federal investigators.

In a 30-page court filing in Washington, former New York federal judge John Gleeson called Attorney General William P. Barr’s request to drop Flynn’s case a “corrupt and politically motivated favor unworthy of our justice system.”

“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,” said Gleeson, who was appointed by the court to argue against the government’s request to dismiss the case.

Gleeson’s filing set the stage for a potentially dramatic courtroom confrontation Sept. 29 with the Justice Department and Flynn’s defense over the fate of the highest-ranking Trump adviser to plead guilty in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation. Friday’s filings echo earlier arguments from Gleeson, who called the Justice Department’s attempt to undo Flynn’s conviction a politically motivated and “a gross abuse of prosecutorial power.”

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the District of Columbia set the hearing date after a federal appeals court upheld his authority to review and rule on the government’s dismissal request on Aug. 31. The hearing before Sullivan was selected from three dates proposed by the parties and is scheduled the same day as the first presidential debate between Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Flynn’s lawyer Sidney Powell on Friday called Gleeson’s filing “predictable and meaningless,” saying again that Flynn’s investigation was “corrupt from its inception.”

Sidney Powell is  complete nutjob, by the way, less than a half step away from Q-Anon.

………

Although Flynn cooperated with the Mueller probe and was prepared to be sentenced December 2018, he switched course after Mueller’s investigation ended and Barr took office last year. Flynn then accused prosecutors and his former attorneys of coercing him into pleading guilty and concealing FBI misconduct, claims that the department and Sullivan rejected.

When Barr came in, someone told Flynn that the fix was in.

………

“Pursuant to an active investigation into whether President Trump’s campaign officials coordinated activities with the Government of Russia, one of those officials lied to the FBI about coordinating activities with the Government of Russia,” Gleeson said earlier in the case.

“That is about as straightforward a case of materiality as a prosecutor, court, or jury will ever see,” he wrote.

Of all the people who need to go to jail, and be disbarred in the Trump administration, Billy Barr needs it the worst.