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Whitaker describes this as the “obstruction of justice trap.” Essentially, this approach confirms the second-prong purpose of the Mueller investigation itself. First, use the special counsel in 2017, 2018 and into the beginning of 2019, as a shield (hide information); and secondly a weapon (threats) against any entity who would reveal the background intelligence that undercut the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. We know President Trump was threatened by Rod Rosenstein not to declassify any information in September of 2018 or the Mueller investigation would use that act as evidence of obstruction. Whitaker confirms that same approach was applied toward any executive...

Twenty legal luminaries led by Harvard professor Laurence Tribe have written a brief urging Judge Emmet Sullivan to reject the government’s motion to dismiss the Michael Flynn case. Twenty legal luminaries calling themselves “Separation of Powers Scholars” and led by Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe have written a brief urging Judge Emmet Sullivan to reject the government’s motion to dismiss the Michael Flynn case and to proceed to sentencing.The brief is a shoddy piece of work. It tells little about the Flynn case, even misleading on that score, but it triggers disturbing ruminations about the sad state of current legal academia.How...

Emmet SullivanÂ’s order welcoming amicus curiae briefs in a criminal case would cause a reasonable person to question Judge SullivanÂ’s impartiality. Judge Emmet Sullivan must recuse from the Michael Flynn criminal case because he no longer maintains any semblance of impartiality.On December 1, 2017, Flynn appeared before federal Judge Randolph Contreras and pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement to FBI agents. Less than a week later, and without explanation, the case was reassigned to Sullivan, who has served as the presiding judge in the Flynn case since then.Circumstances have long suggested that Judge Sullivan holds an...

Those condemning the DOJ’s decision to drop the charges against Michael Flynn ignore the growing evidence of misconduct by both the FBI and the federal prosecutors. Not quite two weeks ago, Judge Emmet Sullivan threw open the doors of his federal courtroom to the swamp when he invited third parties to pontificate on the propriety of the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss the criminal charges against Michael Flynn. The next day Sullivan went further: He appointed a former federal judge, John Gleeson, as an amicus curiae, or friend of the court, to argue that the government’s motion to dismiss...

Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., told "Fox & Friends" on Sunday it was an "unprecedented" step for U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to hire a personal attorney as an appeals court reviews his decision not to immediately grant the Justice Department's request to dismiss its case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. "He's wanting to play every position, he wants to play the defense attorney, the prosecutor... the judge, he wants to bring in his own hearings here. This is something that's very concerning," Collins told co-host Griff Jenkins. "It's no shock to me that he finally had...

Former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker reacted on “Sunday Morning Futures” to a federal appeals court directing the judge hearing the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to respond to a petition by Flynn for the charges against him to be thrown out. “There is no discretion of Judge [Emmet] Sullivan to not dismiss the case once the Department of Justice has decided to no longer pursue those charges,” Whitaker said in an exclusive interview on “Sunday Morning Futures.” “I think ultimately it’s going to be a strange proceeding when the appeals court gets their filing from the...

If this surprises you, you haven’t been paying attention. – Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan, under fire for his bizarre conduct of the case involving the framing of General Mike Flynn, will not be filing his own response to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals’ order for him to explain himself by Friday. Instead, the Washington Post reports that he has taken the extraordinary step of hiring “a high-profile lawyer” to do that for him: The federal judge who refused a Justice Department request to immediately drop the prosecution of former Trump adviser Michael Flynn has hired a high-profile trial lawyer...

D.C. federal Judge Emmett Sullivan has hired Beth Wilkinson, a high-powered attorney from the D.C. establishment, to represent him in the Court of Appeals case seeking a writ of mandamus filed by Sidney Powell, the attorney for former Trump National Security Advisor Lt. Gen Michael Flynn (Army Ret.). Powell is seeking to have the appeals court block Sullivan’s efforts to prolong the Flynn case in the face of a motion by the Justice Department to dismiss the with prejudice and to have Sullivan removed form the case. In a stunning move, Sullivan had previously announced the appointment of former federal...

Veteran trial lawyer Beth Wilkinson is helping guide U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan as a federal appeals court questions his plan to probe the U.S. Justice Department’s decision to dismiss the case against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn despite his admission he lied to the FBI. Sullivan refused to immediately dismiss the charge against Flynn, a retired Army general who served for just weeks in Trump’s White House, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is now weighing whether the longtime Washington federal trial judge overstepped his authority. The appeals court set a June 1...

We have been having a spirited debate over the orders of U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in the case of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Now, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has given Judge Sullivan ten days to respond to the motion for his removal. The language is not discretionary so Sullivan will likely to have address the two controversial orders issued after the filing of the motion to dismiss. In particular, he will have to state directly to the D.C. Circuit his understanding of his own discretion in such matters. I have...

The Department of Justice should weigh in and soon because this case is no longer just about Flynn. It is about separation of powers, the executive branch — and now, unfortunately, about Judge Sullivan. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and his legal team, led by attorney Sidney Powell, received promising news Thursday from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a rare move, a three-judge panel ordered Judge Emmet Sullivan, the presiding judge in the long-running criminal case against Flynn, to respond to Powell’s petition for a writ of mandamus. In that petition, Powell asked the appellate court to order...

As Twitchy reported earlier, a three-person appeals court panel gave Judge Emmet Sullivan ten days to put his cards on the table and explain his handling of the Department of Justice’s motion to drop its case against Michael Flynn. One of those judges was an Obama appointee, but never mind that; Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse thought it would be a good idea to smear Judge Neomi Rao and then hit “Tweet.” You see, Rao was appointed by President Trump to replace Brett Kavanaugh, . . ."Where you see Neomi Rao, you can expect a lot of Trumpy dirt to follow. She’s...

A three panel DC Appeals Court Panel, Judge Henderson, Judge Wilkins and Judge Rao have ordered Michael Flynn’s Judge, Emett Sullivan, to respond to the defense petition for a writ of mandamus within ten days: Quoting the U.S. vs Fokker ruling the panel is not responding directly to the Flynn petition with an immediate decision; instead they are requiring Judge Sullivan to explain his decision to engage with extra-party amicus actions despite the DOJ and Flynn defense agreement on the motion to dismiss. The order can be viewed as a smart move by the appeals panel because Judge Sullivan has...

A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered the judge handling the criminal case of President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, to respond to a request by Flynn’s lawyers to dismiss the case. The order came two days after Flynn’s lawyers asked the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to drop the case and assign any future court proceedings to another judge. The Department of Justice two weeks earlier made the surprise move to abandon its own prosecution of Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with then-Russian...

A funny thing happened on the way to the gallows. It was discovered that the condemned man was actually innocent. But the sentence would be carried out, reasoned the hanging judge, because the partisan mob must not be left disappointed. (It would also be a waste of good lumber.) A metaphorical story, yes. But the underlying facts bear a disturbing resemblance to the treatment of Gen. Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser. In early 2017, the retired three-star general was deviously set up and framed by James Comey’s FBI for a crime he did not commit. Thereafter, he...

Michael Flynn's attorney Sidney Powell on Tuesday filed an emergency writ of mandamus to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals seeking the immediate removal of Judge Emmet Sulivan from the case -- and saying that under appellate precedent set by the "Fokker Services" case, Sullivan or his replacement must dismiss the prosecution, as the Justice Department has requested. Writs of mandamus are extraordinary remedies, which are appropriate when there has been a "usurpation of judicial power" that is "clear and indisputable" -- and, Powell argued, Sullivan's behavior fits the bill. Powell also demanded the appellate court vacate Sullivan's order appointing...

It’s a technique pioneered by the Soviets: one last pound of flesh extracted from the victim’s family as further punishment for ‘forcing’ the state to oppress the victim. In 2009, shortly after clashes between Iranian security forces and protesters, the family of 19-year-old Kaveh Alipour learned that to retrieve the remains of their son, they had to pay an equivalent of a $3,000 “bullet fee” to reimburse the Iranian government for the costs of shooting Alipour. It’s a technique pioneered by the Soviets: one last pound of flesh extracted from the victim’s family as further punishment for “forcing” the state...

A total of 15 Republican state attorneys general, led by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, filed an "amicus" brief in support of former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Monday, Fox News has learned. The filing stated that the court needed to grant the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case without commentary immediately “because such punditry disrobes the judiciary of its cloak of impartiality.” The short brief also elaborated on the problems that the court created by “inserting itself into the Justice Department’s exercise of prosecutorial discretion.” On the recommendation of U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen, who served as an FBI...

Sullivan should not embark on any contempt proceeding against Michael Flynn. Doing so would be a misuse of his contempt power. Stunning developments in the criminal case of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn exploded onto the national scene the past two weeks. First, the government moved to dismiss the case, a one-count plea for allegedly making false statements to the FBI.Then the trial judge, Emmet Sullivan, issued an order permitting people and groups claiming to have an interest in the matter to file briefs about whether he should grant the governmentÂ’s motion. Further, Sullivan appointed a retired federal judge, John Gleeson,...

Talkshow Television Lawyers Got It Wrong By: Sharp Steelblade, Esq. The Bad News Journal is now reporting that Mark Levin, Judge Napolitano, and Judge Judy are dead wrong on th law. Either they have not read the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure or are simply spinning the Flynn story for ratings. The sad fact is that General Flynn was railroaded. We don’t know what the attorney told Flynn prior to his guilty plea, but after reportedly paying six million in fees and costs one would think that there might have been a better outcome. But that is not what this...