Court may allow scrutiny of bid

A federal appeals court panel appeared inclined Friday to permit a trial judge to complete his review of the Justice Department’s attempt to drop a criminal case against President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, as all three judges asked skeptical questions about a request that they intervene and order the case dismissed now.

The nearly two hours of oral arguments, conducted by telephone because of the coronavirus pandemic and livestreamed over YouTube, were the latest step in an extraordinary and politically charged case against Flynn. He had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations in 2016 with the Russian ambassador before Attorney General William Barr decided last month to try to drop the case, an unusual intervention.

Rather than immediately granting the government’s request, the federal judge overseeing the matter, Judge Emmet Sullivan, began a review of its legitimacy. He appointed John Gleeson, a former mafia prosecutor and retired federal judge, to argue against it and set arguments on the matter for July 16.

If the appeals court panel permits that process to play out, the Justice Department will have to respond to a scathing brief Gleeson submitted to Sullivan this week that portrayed Barr’s decision as a “gross abuse” of power. The move undermined the rule of law by giving special favor to a presidential ally, offering a dubious rationale as a “pretext,” Gleeson wrote.

Last month, on the same day that Sullivan appointed Gleeson to critique the Justice Department’s new position about the case, Flynn’s defense lawyer, Sidney Powell, asked the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to issue a socalled writ of mandamus that would order Sullivan to immediately end the case.

But Beth Wilkinson, a lawyer representing Sullivan, told the appeals court that short-circuiting the trial court’s review of the motion would be premature.

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