Flynn’s dismissal case was heard in court today and it looks like Judge Sullivan may win this battle, only to end up dismissing the case next month:
FOX NEWS – One of the judges on the panel overseeing an appeal to force Judge Emmet Sullivan to let the Department of Justice (DOJ) drop its prosecution against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said Friday that the court might have appointed an “intemperate amicus” to oppose the DOJ.
It was an apparent swipe at outside counsel John Gleeson, who wrote a lengthy 73-page brief this week opposing the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the Flynn case, in which he said the government’s arguments “are riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact” and “are not credible as the real reasons for the dismissal of a criminal charge.” Gleeson is a Sullivan-appointed “amicus curie,” which is Latin for “friend of the court” — meaning he is a third party allowed to present arguments in a case.
The judge’s critique, however, was meant to underscore the point that Sullivan should be given leeway to make his own decision in the case.
“Granted, he may have chosen an intemperate amicus, but that doesn’t mean that he is going to deny this motion,” D.C Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee, said of Sullivan, a district judge in D.C. “And considering the drastic remedy that mandamus is, considering there’s no precedent that allows us to move without an order, and considering that there’s been a hearing set for July 16, I don’t see why we don’t observe regular order and allow him to rule.”
A writ of mandamus is an order from a court instructing a government official to perform his or her duties a certain way.
Henderson added: “For all we know [Sullivan] will say this amicus brief is over the top, the dismissal motion is granted.”
Government lawyer Jeff Wall then repeated Henderson’s phrasing in his response, arguing that an “intemperate amicus” is a further reason for the appeals court to step in and end the Flynn case.
From everything I’ve read about the case today, the Obama-appointed judge was very much on the side of Sullivan, the Reagan/George H.W. Bush appointed seemed to favor letting Sullivan deal with the case after the hearing next month, and the Trump-nominated judge was hard to read.
Based on what I saw from Henderson in the write-up, it does sound like she’d rather have Sullivan end it naturally rather than having to force him to do so. Which means the case will be drawn out for even longer.
But it’s possible it could go the other way, as people have read judges wrong in the past based on their questions and comments.