Judge Sullivan Refuses to Dismiss Flynn Case After Pardon by President Trump; Rogue Judge Issues Orders Allowing Amicus Briefs in Case
In new orders issued Monday allowing amicus briefs, Judge Emmet Sullivan makes clear he is ignoring President Trump’s pardon of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (U.S. Army Ret.) granted November 25 that he was given formal notice of by the Justice Department on November 30.
Several minute orders by Sullivan were posted to the court docket Monday allowing the filing of amicus briefs in the Flynn case that were filed earlier in the fall when the GOJ motioned to dismiss the case against Flynn. Among those allowed to file are House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) joined by several committee members as well as former Watergate prosecutors. Sullivan refused to dismiss the case even with the charges dropped and has delayed ruling for months even though he was ordered by the D.C. Court of Appeals in a decision rejecting a writ of mandamus request filed by Flynn to “proceed with appropriate dispatch” on the motion to dismiss. That ruling came on August 31. Sullivan is now dragging the case out into December with no end in sight unless another mandamus case is filed by the DOJ or Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell.
The minute orders were first reported by Courthouse News reporter Megan Mineiro who posted a copy of the docket:
Judge Sullivan on #Flynn's case just granted a lineup of requests to file friend-of-the-court briefs in the wake of Trump granting a pardon to the former national security adviser. pic.twitter.com/16BipvH8ZZ
— Megan Mineiro (@MMineiro_CNS) December 7, 2020
Just last Friday a fellow federal judge of Sullivan’s on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Senior Judge Reggie Walton, said at a court hearing in a civil case involving FOIA requests about the Flynn investigation that Sullivan may challenge the Flynn pardon as too broad, according to a report by the National Law Journal:
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said at a hearing Friday that he doesn’t think U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, his colleague presiding over the Flynn case, “has a lot of options in reference to what he does” after the pardon was granted, “unless he takes the position that the wording of the pardon is too broad, in that it provides protections beyond the date of the pardon.”
“I don’t know what impact that would have, what decision he would make, if he makes that determination that the pardon of Mr. Flynn is for a period that the law does not permit. I don’t know if that’s correct or not,” the judge continued. “Theoretically, the decision could be reached because the wording in the pardon seems to be very, very broad. It could be construed, I think, as extending protections against criminal prosecutions after the date the pardon was issued.”
“I don’t know if Judge Sullivan will make that determination or not,” Walton added.
Walton made the comments in a public records case over FBI interviews from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller III’s investigation. CNN and BuzzFeed News, represented by Ballard Spahr’s Charles Tobin at Friday’s hearing, want the records from Flynn’s FBI interviews to be reprocessed in light of the pardon, revealing information that was initially shielded due to an exemption tied to ongoing prosecutions…
The Constitution grants the absolute right to pardon to the president:
Article II
Section 2
Clause 1
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
Executive Grant of Clemency
Donald J. Trump
President of the United States of America
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, GREETING:
BE IT KNOWN, THAT THIS DAY, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PURSUANT TO MY POWERS UNDER ARTICLE II, SECTION 2, CLAUSE 1, OF THE CONSTITUTION, HAVE GRANTED UNTO
MICHAEL T. FLYNN
A FULL AND UNCONDITIONAL PARDON
for the charge of making false statements to Federal investigators, in violation of Section 1001, Title 18, United States Code, as charged in the Information filed under docket number 1:17-CR-00232-EGS in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia; for any and all possible offenses arising from the facts set forth in the Information and Statement of Offense filed under that docket number or that might arise, or be charged, claimed, or asserted, in connection with the proceedings under that docket number; for any and all possible offenses within the investigatory authority or jurisdiction of the Special Counsel appointed on May 17, 2017, including the initial Appointment Order No. 3915-2017 and subsequent memoranda regarding the Special Counsel’s investigatory authority; and for any and all possible offenses arising out of facts and circumstances known to, identified by, or in any manner related to the investigation of the Special Counsel, including, but not limited to, any grand jury proceedings in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia or the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto signed my name and caused the seal of the Department of Justice to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington in the District of Columbia this twenty-fifth day of November in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty and of the Independence of the United States the Two Hundred and Forty-fifth.
Donald J. Trump
President
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