Flynn attorneys file to oppose Judge Sullivan request for full judge panel to review case dismissal

Attorneys for Michael Flynn filed court documents Monday opposing the request by the judge overseeing their client's case that a full panel of judges be allowed to hear briefings and arguments on a pending motion to dismiss the U.S. government’s case against the former national security adviser.

Judge Emmet Sullivan made the request July 9 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, after a three-judge panel ruled in June that the federal courts should accept Attorney General William Barr’s request to drop the Justice Department case. 

“No federal circuit has countenanced rehearing of a mandamus on petition by a district judge,” Flynn’s legal team argued in the 29-page request filed in the same federal appeals court. “Judge Sullivan has no cognizable interest in the case. Rehearing should be denied because the panel properly applied the longstanding use of mandamus to which General Flynn is clearly entitled.”

Flynn agreed to a plea in which he pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with a Russian ambassador during incoming Trump administration's White House transition period.

However, the release of previously classified documents that suggest the FBI mishandled the case led the retired Army lieutenant general to withdraw his plea and for the Justice Department this spring to ask the courts to end the case.