{"id":30365,"date":"2020-08-31T16:52:56","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T21:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=30365"},"modified":"2020-08-31T16:56:10","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T21:56:10","slug":"criminal-cronies-right-at-the-top-ctd-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2020\/08\/31\/criminal-cronies-right-at-the-top-ctd-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Criminal Cronies Right At The Top, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Judge Emmet Sullivan&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2020\/06\/24\/criminal-cronies-right-at-the-top-ctd\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">extraordinary suit<\/a> seeking to permit him to examine the reasons the prosecutors have decided to drop charges against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn for lying to the <strong><em>FBI<\/em><\/strong> &#8211; after he had plead guilty <em>twice<\/em> &#8211; has been granted on appeal to the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, much to my relief. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/legal-issues\/appeals-court-michael-flynn\/2020\/08\/31\/24ce93f0-e0b1-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Here&#8217;s<\/a> <strong><em>WaPo<\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n<div class=\"teaser-content\">\n<section>\n<blockquote><p>In an 8-to-2 ruling, the court denied Flynn\u2019s request, backed by the Justice Department, to shut down Sullivan\u2019s planned review and his appointment of a retired federal judge to argue against the government\u2019s position.<\/p>\n<p>The decision by the full court\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/context\/u-s-district-judge-emmet-g-sullivan-cannot-scrutinize-justice-dept-decision-to-drop-prosecution-flynn\/75ce76f1-56f3-4f97-842c-b3945b26f6b1\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_1&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_4&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_4&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_6\">reverses a ruling by a three-judge panel<\/a> of the same court that ordered Sullivan to immediately close the case.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The three judge panel ruled against Sullivan 2-1, so when the entire court rules 8-2 against, it means only Trump appointee Judge Rao and Bush appointee Henderson were persuaded that seeking the presiding judge&#8217;s permission to terminate a case in which a conviction has been obtained is mere formality.<\/p>\n<p>As I noted earlier, it&#8217;s a gob-smacking opinion to hold, at least to this non-lawyer who is merely reading the clear meaning of the text, and I&#8217;m mightily relieved that the entire Court felt those two members were mistaken.<\/p>\n<p>So &#8211; does the government now apply to <em><strong>SCOTUS<\/strong><\/em> for a reversal? Or does Sullivan get to put the prosecutors &#8211; who are not the original prosecutors &#8211; on the stand and ask them, if they don&#8217;t mind, to tell him just what the hell they think they&#8217;re doing?<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, either route is a win for the forces of democracy. If <strong><em>SCOTUS<\/em><\/strong> has to decide, in all likelihood they&#8217;ll vote 7-2 against Barr and Trump, again exposing them for their inability to understand the law or their unprincipled use of delaying tactics. If <em><strong>SCOTUS<\/strong><\/em> votes for Barr and Trump, the conservative wing will have a lot of explaining to do to both sides of the political spectrum. But the vote won&#8217;t go that way.<\/p>\n<p>And if they don&#8217;t appeal, the replacement prosecutors, faced with Barr&#8217;s wrath on one side and perjury sanctions on the other, will be sweating that much sooner. I hope Judge Sullivan signals that the trial will resume this extraordinary phase later this week.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the prosecutors, with or without Barr&#8217;s direction, could reverse themselves yet again. That self-preservation move would conceal from public view the corrupt directives of Barr &amp; Trump, which would make me sad. But they may go that way. But I doubt it. It&#8217;s more likely they&#8217;ll resign, buying more time for Barr &amp; Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Although I have heard of resignations not being accepted by a Court.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Judge Emmet Sullivan&#8217;s extraordinary suit seeking to permit him to examine the reasons the prosecutors have decided to drop charges against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI &#8211; after he had plead guilty twice &#8211; has been granted on appeal to the full U.S. Court \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2020\/08\/31\/criminal-cronies-right-at-the-top-ctd-2\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30367,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30365\/revisions\/30367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}