Judge Emmet Sullivan has been ordered by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to explain his actions In the Michael Flynn case.
Those actions include apppointing a former federal Judge with a known hostility to Flynn to argue against the government’s motion to dismiss the case and to consider whether Flynn should be held in criminal contempt for perjury (presumably in connection with his guilty plea, which Flynn now renounces).
Sullivan also has opened up the court’s docket to anyone who wants to file an amicus brief, which numerous anti-Trump people and groups have bragged they will do.
A Judge being directed personally to explain himself in this manner is not usual. And Sullivan has hired high-powered legal help to represent the Judge, according to The Washington Post.
WaPo reports:
The federal judge who refused a Justice Department request to immediately drop the prosecution of former Trump adviser Michael Flynn has hired a high-profile trial lawyer to argue his reasons for investigating whether dismissing the case is legally or ethically appropriate.
In a rare step that adds to this criminal case’s already unusual path, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan has retained Beth Wilkinson to represent him in defending his decision to a federal appeals court in Washington, according to a person familiar with the hire who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter….A federal judge doesn’t typically hire private counsel to respond to an appeals court, and yet so much about Flynn’s case has been a departure from the norm. A defendant doesn’t normally plead guilty under oath, and then try to withdraw that admission, as Flynn did.
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