The Flynn prosecution in Washington’s federal trial court
had long been a rallying flashpoint for conservatives who argued the case was
an example of prosecutorial overreach, despite that Flynn had admitted to
misconduct and agreed to cooperate with Robert Mueller’s special counsel
investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Barr, speaking with CBS News on Thursday, disputed the
notion he was doing the bidding of Trump—who had regularly assailed the Flynn
case and championed his disgraced former national security adviser as a
hero—when the Justice Department said it was moving to drop the prosecution
with prejudice. “No, I’m doing the law’s bidding,” Barr insisted.
Flynn’s lawyer, Sidney Powell, called the Justice Department’s decision “a victory
for truth, justice, the president, and millions of Americans who want the rule
of law restored across the land.”
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan now will weigh the
Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the Flynn case. U.S. Attorney
Timothy Shea argued Thursday there was no basis for the FBI to interview Flynn
in 2017 in the first place, and therefore his statements about his
conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak were not material.
Sullivan could decide to hold a hearing about the government’s push to drop the
case, or the judge could enter an order quickly ending the prosecution.
A career prosecutor assigned to the Flynn case, Brandon Van
Grack, withdrew from the case shortly before Shea filed papers to end it. Van
Grack has not commented publicly about his decision, which mirrored the moves
by career lawyers who quit the Roger Stone case after Barr intervened to argue
for a lighter prison sentence for the Trump confidante.
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