Courtroom Showdown: DOJ Tries To Defend Decision To Drop Charges Against Trump Buddy Flynn
This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. It’s a rare instance when politicization and corruption at Attorney General Bill Barr’s Justice Department see their day in court, and where a federal judge has the chance to block the DOJ’s unprecedented decision to drop a damaging case brought against a close ally of President Trump’s.
And for the DOJ, this was unexpected. District Judge Emmett Sullivan refused to go along with the Department’s move to dismiss its case against Michael Flynn in May, instead appointing former federal judge John Gleeson to argue against the government’s motion.
Flynn, the government, and Gleeson are today presenting arguments before Sullivan about why the case should be dismissed, an eventuality against which Flynn’s defense team and the DOJ strenuously fought throughout a bruising summer appellate battle. But a full appeals court panel sent the case back to Sullivan, setting up today’s hearing: a chance for an impartial judge to examine whether the DOJ’s unprecedented decision to drop charges for a political buddy of the President can be permitted.
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