Judge in DOJ road block

A federal judge has thrown a major hurdle in front of the Justice Department as it moves to drop the prosecution of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan announced in an order Wednesday that he will be appointing a former federal judge to present arguments against the government’s attempt to dismiss Flynn’s case.

That retired judge, John Gleeson, is also instructed to advise “why Mr. Flynn should not be held in criminal contempt for perjury,” according to the order.

Gleeson has already made public his views on the case, raising questions in a Washington Post op-ed published Monday about Attorney General William Barr’s decision to back off the case.

“There has been nothing regular about the department’s effort to dismiss the Flynn case. The record reeks of improper political influence,” Gleeson, a former Brooklyn federal judge, wrote.

He went on to criticize the Justice Department for stating it can’t prove its case — even though Flynn had already confessed to lying to the FBI.

The department had previously defended its dropping of the case by arguing that the FBI interview with Flynn in 2017 was “untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn” and was “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.”

The case now appears set to drag on for several months as speculation lingers as to whether President Trump will move to simply pardon Flynn.

Trump earlier on Wednesday declined to discuss the option, only referring to Flynn as a “great, great gentleman.”