Retired Judge John Gleeson Tells Court Michael Flynn’s Guilt Is ‘Obvious’

Retired judge John Gleeson argued Friday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) should not be allowed to drop charges against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn because his guilt is “obvious” and the DOJ has become “corrupt.”

Gleeson was appointed by Judge Emmet Sullivan to submit an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief arguing against prosecutors’ motion to drop charges against Michael Flynn after exculpatory evidence emerged following a DOJ review.

Sullivan originally sought amicus briefs arguing why he should not find Flynn in criminal contempt of court for changing his original guilty plea, for the crime of lying to the FBI, to a plea of not guilty after exculpatory evidence began to emerge.

He appointed Gleeson, who had already published an op-ed in the Washington Post arguing that the case “reeks of improper political influence.”

Flynn sought a writ of mandamus from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He won an initial decision 2-1, but Judge Sullivan asked for an en banc hearing, which reversed the earlier ruling late last month and sent the case back to the lower court.

In his brief Friday, Gleeson accused President Donald Trump of having “orchestrate[d] pressure campaigns to get the Justice Department to drop charges against defendants who have pleaded guilty.” He alleged that the DOJ’s motion to drop charges “reflects a corrupt and politically motivated favor unworthy of our justice system.”

Gleeson also claims that Flynn “lied” about his conversations with then-Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, though recently-released transcripts suggest that Flynn never lied to anyone — neither to the FBI nor to the vice president.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.