Former judge to argue against DOJ in Flynn case next month

A former judge appointed to argue against the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) motion to drop charges against Michael Flynn intends to lay out his case next month, he told a federal court on Monday.

John Gleeson was tapped to argue as a third party in the case after the Trump administration moved to drop its charges against the president’s former national security adviser for lying to the FBI.

Gleeson, a former federal judge in New York, proposed a June 10 deadline for his amicus brief.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, a Clinton appointee who’s presiding over the Flynn prosecution, tapped Gleeson for the role and instructed him to present an argument against the Justice Department’s unusual motion and also explore whether Flynn committed perjury in reversing an earlier guilty plea.

The DOJ’s move has raised concerns from critics of political meddling in the case against President Trump’s ally. A career prosecutor attached to the case withdrew shortly before the motion to drop charges was filed earlier this month.

Flynn’s attorneys are trying to fight Sullivan’s appointment of an amicus in the case, saying it violates the separation of powers.

“It is no accident that amicus briefs are excluded in criminal cases,” Flynn’s lawyers wrote in a filing last week. “A criminal case is a dispute between the United States and a criminal defendant. There is no place for third parties to meddle in the dispute, and certainly not to usurp the role of the government’s counsel. For the Court to allow another to stand in the place of the government would be a violation of the separation of powers.”