DC Court of Appeals Agrees to Hear Challenge to Dismissal of Michael Flynn's Case

By streiff | 12:15 PM on July 30, 2020

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AP featured image — Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, leaves the federal court following a status conference with Judge Emmet Sullivan, in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

The DC Court of Appeals has agreed to rehear en banc the decision by a panel to order the dismissal of the charges against 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 argument for August 11.

Sullivan requested a rehearing by a full complement of judges after a divided three-judge panel ordered him 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.

I am not a lawyer. I don’t even play one on the internet. But I think this is a shock to most observers who took the length of time elapsed after Sullivan asked for a rehearing to mean that the appeal was going to be declined but that there were dissenting judges who wanted to voice their opinion. (Visit this link for all of RedState’s coverage of this episode.)

What this means is that there is effectively no end in sight for General Flynn and that the DC Circuit had become a part of turning the process into punishment because every day that goes by, Flynn continues to rack up legal bills. It also means that Flynn’s fate is quite possibly in the hands of a new administration should President Trump fail to win reelection.