The federal judge overseeing the case against former national-security advisor Michael Flynn moved on Tuesday to delay the Justice Department’s request to dismiss the case, saying he will allow third parties to weigh in before dropping the case.
Judge Emmet Sullivan said he will allow parties outside the DOJ and Flynn’s defense team to file “friend of the court” briefs on the charges against Flynn, who pled guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI but withdrew his guilty plea earlier this year.
“The Court will enter a Scheduling Order governing the submission of any amicus curiae briefs,” the judge wrote in a Tuesday order.
Flynn’s attorneys objected to the decision, saying in a court filing Tuesday that while there are “countless people” who would like to weigh in on the case, there is “no place for third parties to meddle in the dispute, and certainly not to usurp the role of the government’s counsel.”
“This travesty of justice has already consumed three or more years of an innocent man’s life — and that of his entire family,” Flynn’s lawyers said. “No further delay should be tolerated or any further expense caused to him and his defense.”
Flynn, a retired three-star general, was fired by President Trump after the revelation that he made contradictory statements to Vice President Mike Pence about whether he had discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. He pled guilty during Trump’s first year in office to making false statements to the FBI regarding his contacts with the Russian ambassador. The case against the former national-security adviser arose from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia.
The Justice Department on Thursday made the controversial decision to drop the charges against Flynn, stating that Flynn’s FBI interview in January, 2017 was “untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn” and “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.”