U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan’s decision not to dismiss the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn is certainly unusual. In our legal system, only the executive branch may bring federal criminal charges. And if the U.S. Justice Department, the agency in charge of federal prosecutions, says it no longer wants the case, it would normally be an easy call for the judge to drop it.
But nothing about this case is easy. If Sullivan’s move to delay a decision — and to seek the input of a variety of legal experts as well as appoint a former judge to make the case why charges should not be dropped — raises a few eyebrows, Justice’s actions are jaw-dropping.
Sullivan is absolutely right to take a long hard look at this case. He may decide in the end that he has no choice. However, rolling over as the Trump administration uses law enforcement to settle political scores would be wrong.
Originally, President Donald Trump hired Flynn as his first national security adviser in 2017 despite his troubling contacts with Russia and a decision to lobby for Turkey while on the Trump 2016 campaign. In two dozen days he was forced out, primarily for lying to Vice President Mike Pence.
As Trump tweeted: “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the vice president and the FBI.”
Later that year, Flynn pleaded guilty as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 election.
Mueller would eventually wrap up his report — finding much damaging behavior but no conclusive evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The Flynn case would move to the back burner and attention would move to other matters — namely Trump’s effort to strong-arm Ukraine into impugning former Vice President Joe Biden.
With the end of the Mueller probe and the Senate’s decision not to convict the president for his Ukraine dealings, Flynn noted a more truculent tone out of Trump and asked to reverse his plea. But as recently as January, Justice would have none of it. Prosecutors, who had recommended no jail time earlier when he was cooperating, recommended up to six months behind bars.
Then came the coronavirus, a global pandemic and a tanking economy coming right in the middle of Trump’s effort to get reelected. If he was interested before in settling some political scores, now he has set out to weaponize law enforcement and rewrite history. Every action he has taken that is either inept or abusive (or both) — his inexplicable kowtowing to Russia, his deplorable actions in Ukraine, even the federal government’s late and chaotic response to COVID-19 — now has to be packaged as some kind of plot of the Obama administration, which, of course, includes presidential candidate Biden.
Under those circumstances, it simply would not do to admit that the president’s own trusted national security adviser had done something wrong. Even if the president himself had reached that very same conclusion in 2017.
Under these circumstances, it is right for Judge Sullivan to take a hard look at this case. What is in question is the trustworthiness of our criminal justice system. Under the leadership of Trump and his attorney general, William Barr, there’s plenty of doubt.
— USA TODAY
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May 23, 2020 at 12:06PM
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