A US appeals court has ordered District Judge Emmet Sullivan to comply with a recent decision by the Department of Justice and drop the review of the criminal case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and whether the DOJ’s decision to terminate the criminal case against him was legal. The order came after a split decision of the three-judge panel in favour of Flynn.
"In this case, the district court’s actions will result in specific harms to the exercise of the executive branch’s exclusive prosecutorial power. The contemplated proceedings would likely require the Executive to reveal the internal deliberative process behind its exercise of prosecutorial discretion", one of the appeals court judges said.
The DOJ earlier issued an order to drop Flynn's case, as it had been dragging on without progress for five months in a row. The move came in light of statements by US President Donald Trump, who said he was "strongly considering" pardoning the former administration official.
Pleas and Withdrawals in Flynn's Case
Flynn was accused of making "false and fraudulent statements" to the FBI regarding the nature of the contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergei Kislyak amid the 2016 election campaign. He pleaded guilty to these charges twice.
However, the former official changed his tune in June 2019, when he fired his previous legal team and hired a new one. The new team accused the US prosecutors of "malevolent conduct" and the FBI of organising an ambush interview that would force Flynn to make statements that could later be seen as false.
In January 2020, Flynn, who was never convicted on charges of lying to the FBI, requested to withdraw his guilty plea. After the case spent months in limbo, the Department of Justice on 7 May ordered that his case be dropped.