Friend of Court Brief filed in Flynn Case
An amicus curiae filed in the case of Gen. Michael Flynn claims that despite prosecutors’ claims, Flynn is guilty. Declaring that, “Flynn’s guilt is plain,” former judge John Gleeson presented a 72-page “Friend of the Court” brief to U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, making the case that charges should not be dismissed even though prosecutors filed a motion with the court to have all charges dropped.
Flynn had pleaded guilty to two counts of lying to the FBI stemming from a January of 2017 interview. Critics of the investigation say that his confession was “coerced.”
Gleeson’s brief was solicited by Judge Sullivan after prosecutors for the Department of Justice had requested all charges against Flynn be dropped. Sullivan resisted granting the motion and requested outside counsel provide reasons why the motion should not be granted.
“Leave of court should not be granted when the explanations the Government puts forth are not credible as the real reasons for its dismissal of a criminal charge,” Gleeson wrote. Also citing a “gross abuse of prosecutorial power” as another reason for Judge Sullivan to reject the motion. The abuse referenced by Gleeson refers to what he describes as a “corrupt, politically motivated” request for dismissal.
There were no surprises in the brief as Judge Sullivan had selected Gleeson for the assignment merely days after Gleeson authored a scathing opinion editorial in the Washington Post, which also concluded that Flynn was guilty and prosecutors had no standing to drop the charges against him.
Flynn’s attorney, former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell has not made a statement on the Gleeson brief, but Thursday morning tweeted an analysis by Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett.
Jarrett uproots Gleeson’s reasoning calling it “stunningly feeble on both facts and law. To compensate for his anemic arguments, he tortures the reader with overwrought blather that bears little relevance to the main issue at hand.”
To Gleeson’s point that the justice department prosecutors had “offered pretextual reasons for dismissal” and that the request for dismissal was done for nefarious reasons, Jarrett says:
“Gleeson’s inane reasoning is that President Trump has tweeted about the Flynn case, so there must be corruption afoot. Gleeson offers no real proof.”
The Flynn prosecution was one of the first brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office. The Mueller investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign sharply divided the political class with Democrats claiming Russia helped Trump win the 2016 election, and Trump allies saying that the “Russia collusion” narrative was an invention of the Democratic Party. Mueller’s two-year investigation turned up no evidence of a conspiracy between Trump and Russia.
Gen. Flynn’s fate now rests in a Federal Appeals Court following escalation to a higher court when Judge Sullivan refused to grant the prosecution’s motion to drop all charges against Flynn. The appeals court is set to hear arguments on the case Friday.
PHOTO: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
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