Flynn case ordered dismissed
Trump says he’s happy for former national security adviser
WASHINGTON — A divided federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered the dismissal of the criminal case against President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said in a 2-1 ruling that the Justice Department’s move to abandon the case against Flynn settles the matter, even though Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
The ruling came as Democrats question whether the Justice Department has become too politicized and Attorney General William Barr too quick to side with the president.
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Wednesday centered on a move by Barr to overrule his own prosecutors and ask for less prison time for another Trump associate, Roger Stone. Barr has accepted an invitation to testify before the panel on July 28, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Trump tweeted just moments after the ruling became public: “Great! Appeals Court Upholds Justice Departments Request to Drop Criminal Case Against General Michael Flynn.”
Later, at the White House, Trump told reporters he was happy for
Flynn.
Flynn called in to conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh’s radio show and said the ruling was a good development for him and his family. But he also called it a “great boost of confidence for the American people in our justice system because that’s what this really comes down to — is whether or not our justice system is going to have the confidence of the American people.”
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan had declined to immediately dismiss the case. He appointed a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Department’s position and to consider whether Flynn could be held in criminal contempt for perjury. He had set a July 16 hearing to formally hear the request to dismiss the case.
Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump nominee who was joined by Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson, wrote that Sullivan had overstepped his bounds by second-guessing the Justice Department’s decision. This case, she said, “is not the unusual case where a more searching inquiry is justified.”