A retired judge urged a federal court on Wednesday never to encourage the Justice Department to dismiss its criminal case against President Donald Trump’s former adviser Michael Flynn, citing proof of a “gross abuse of prosecutorial power.”
The US district judge hearing the fact, Emmet Sullivan, tapped John Gleeson last month to serve as a “friend in the court,” following Justice Department abruptly asked the legal court to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general.
The stunning move among the Justice Department followed a pressure campaign by Trump with his fantastic allies and came even when Flynn had twice pleaded guilty to lying into the FBI about conversations with former Russian Ambassador to america Sergey Kislyak.
“The Department of Justice incorporates a solemn responsibility to prosecute this example – as with any other case – without fear or favor,” Gleeson wrote. “It has abdicated that responsibility by having a gross abuse of prosecutorial power, aiming to provide special treatment into a favored friend and political ally in the President of the United States.”
He was quoted saying Sullivan should proceed with sentencing Flynn.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment beyond what exactly the government has argued in the court filings.
Flynn was undoubtedly one of several former Trump aides charged under former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that detailed Moscow’s interference inside the 2016 US presidential election.
Gleeson said there exists “ample evidence in the record that Flynn committed perjury,” or lied under oath.
He recommended that Sullivan take Flynn’s perjury under consideration when sentencing him for lying towards FBI, in lieu of commencing a follow-on prosecution.
Despite admitting twice under oath to lying in to the FBI and agreeing to cooperate, Flynn later changed legal tactics and the attorneys now allege the FBI entrapped him.
The Justice Department now says the FBI investigation that led to the charge lacked an adequate legal basis and that Flynn’s statements, even if untrue, were not material.
“The reasons made available from the us government are incredibly irregular, as a result obviously pretextual, that they are deficient,” Gleeson wrote in response. “They reveal an unconvincing effort to disguise as legitimate a determination to dismiss which is based solely on the truth that Flynn may be a political ally of President Trump.”
Gleeson highlighted the conversations that Flynn had with Kislyak that brought about the false-statement charge, and compared them against how Flynn portrayed them during his January 2017 FBI interview.
A transcript showed Flynn telling Kislyak he needed to avoid a “tit for tat” over sanctions the us imposed on Russia due to its interference during the 2016 election.
Flynn has also asked an appeals court to make Sullivan to accept the request to decrease the actual situation. Arguments in that case are set for Friday.
“This Court must stop him (Sullivan) before he further jeopardizes the legitimacy on the federal judiciary,” Flynn told the appeals court in any court filing on Wednesday.
Sullivan has said he cannot serve as a “rubber stamp” and should carefully assess the facts with this “unprecedented” request.
