The judge presiding over Michael Flynn's criminal case appointed a retired jurist on Wednesday to evaluate whether the former Trump administration national security adviser should be held in criminal contempt, the AP reports. The judge's order is the second signal in as many days (here's the first) registering his resistance to swiftly accepting the Justice Department's motion to dismiss all charges against Flynn. In his order, US District Judge Emmet Sullivan appointed former federal judge John Gleeson as an amicus curiae—or friend-of-the-court—and asked him to explore whether Sullivan should hold Flynn in "criminal contempt for perjury."
Flynn pleaded guilty, as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, to lying to the FBI about conversations with the then-Russian ambassador to the US during the presidential transition period. As part of the plea, he had to admit in court, under oath, that he lied to the FBI and violated federal law. Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec declined to comment on Sullivan's order. In January, Flynn filed court papers to withdraw his guilty plea, saying federal prosecutors had acted in "bad faith" and broken their end of the bargain when they sought prison time for him. But the Justice Department moved last week to dismiss the case, saying the FBI had insufficient basis to question Flynn and his statements were not relevant to a broader counterintelligence investigation.
(More
Michael Flynn stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
