A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled in favor of Michael Flynn, ordering the case against Donald Trump’s first national security adviser to be dropped in a legal victory for the president and his allies. “Great!” Trump tweeted after the decision.
The Justice Department in May abruptly dropped its case against Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact with Russia as part of Robert Mueller’s inquiry into meddling by the Kremlin in the 2016 presidential election. Trumpworld was ecstatic, claiming the retired general had been vindicated in his legal saga against a probe the president and his allies decry as a “deep state” effort to subvert the administration. But critics were outraged at the move, which they decried as an example of the politicization of the DOJ under Trump fixer William Barr, and federal judge Emmet G. Sullivan hit pause on the decision to let Flynn skate to allow for counterarguments.
But a three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decided against Sullivan on Wednesday, with Trump appointee Neomi Rao writing in the majority opinion that the federal judge “[failed] to justify the district court’s unprecedented intrusions on individual liberty and the Executive’s charging authority.”
The case “is about whether, after the government has explained why a prosecution is no longer in the public interest, the district judge may prolong the prosecution by appointing an amicus, encouraging public participation, and probing the government’s motives,” Judge Rao wrote. “On that, both the Constitution and cases are clear: he may not.”
If there are no additional appeals, the ruling Wednesday would draw Flynn’s legal saga to a close after two and a half years, even as significant concerns remain about Barr’s DOJ putting allies of the president above the law. On Tuesday, Aaron Zelinsky—who prosecuted Trump confidante Roger Stone—testified to lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the Justice Department intervened in the shady political operative’s case to get him a lighter sentence. “What I saw was the Department of Justice exerting significant pressure on the line prosecutors in the case to obscure the correct Sentencing Guidelines calculation to which Roger Stone was subject—and to water down and in some cases outright distort the events that transpired in his trial and the criminal conduct that gave rise to his conviction,” Zelinsky said. Barr has openly been transforming the DOJ into a political tool for the president, and Rao’s decision on Wednesday will do little to allay those concerns. In a biting dissent, Judge Robert Wilkins said the court “grievously” overreached and raised questions about the DOJ’s decision to drop its prosecution. “This is no mere about-face,” Wilkins wrote. “It is more akin to turning around an aircraft carrier.”
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who serves as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, blasted the decision. “The court claims a ‘presumption of regularity’ in the dismissal of Flynn’s case, a Trump ally who pled guilty twice,” he tweeted. “On the same day a career prosecutor testifies about political interference in Roger Stone’s case. There’s nothing ‘regular’ at Barr’s DOJ, but the cronyism.”
Nevertheless, the ruling represents a significant victory for Trump and his allies, who have regarded the case as a proxy battle against the long-shuttered Russia probe and who have even suggested Flynn should rejoin the administration. “JUSTICE,” tweeted Trump ally Jim Jordan, one of the most fervid critics of the Mueller investigation on Capitol Hill. “Justice. Finally justice,” wrote Senator Lindsey Graham, another of Trump’s closest allies. “Justice delayed is better than no justice.”
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