Pass the Popcorn

Pass the Popcorn

When DC Appellate Court ruled that District Judge Emmett Sullivan had no power to investigate possible corruption in the dismissal of charges, and multiple guilty pleas, against Michael Flynn, I kind of figured that, the two judges who wrote this opinion, a Trump and a Bush appointee, had gotten away with a nakedly partisan, and nakedly corrupt, decision.

It appears that the rest of the DC Court of Appeals was not amused, so there will be an en banc hearing to review the decision.

En banc means that the whole court, as opposed to the normal 3 judge panel, will be reviewing the case.

It appears that the will be narrowly drawn, specifically covering whether Flynn, or for that matter the DoJ has the right to prevent a finding of fact, as opposed to a review of Sullivan's ruling:

A federal appeals court in Washington will take a second look at a judge’s effort to scrutinize the Justice Department’s decision to drop its case against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed Thursday to revisit U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan’s plan to examine the politically charged matter, reviving the unusual case testing the limits of the judiciary’s power to check the executive branch.

The court’s brief order set oral arguments for Aug. 11. The decision to rehear the case before a full complement of judges wipes out the June ruling from a three-judge panel that ordered Sullivan to immediately dismiss the case and said Sullivan was wrong to appoint a retired federal judge to argue against the government’s move to undo Flynn’s guilty plea.

In May, Sullivan refused to go along with the government’s request to end the criminal case against Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador in Washington before Trump took office in 2017.

Instead, Sullivan asked retired federal judge John Gleeson to argue against the Justice Department’s request. That prompted Flynn’s attorneys to take the rare step of asking the appeals court to intervene midstream, and they accused Sullivan of bias.

………

The order from the court Thursday suggests that the judges are seeking a narrowly focused argument on the question of whether Flynn should have waited to appeal until after Sullivan rendered a decision. The court told lawyers on both sides to be prepared at oral argument to address whether Flynn had “no other adequate means to attain the relief” he sought from the appeals court.

………

The initial ruling against Sullivan from the three-judge panel cut short his plans to hold a hearing to examine the government’s decision.

The DoJ decision was corrupt as hell, and it was clearly pushed because William Barr sees himself as Donald Trump's consigliere, and not the Attorney General for the United States of America.