Radio Recap – In a Bizarre Move, Flynn Judge Lawyers Up

By 

Jordan Sekulow

|
May 26, 2020

4 min read

Constitution

A

A

In a bizarre move, the judge in the General Flynn case has lawyered up.

On today’s Jay Sekulow Live we discussed the latest bizarre move made by the judge in the Flynn case. Judge Sullivan has hired an attorney to represent him in responding to the D.C. Court of Appeals demand that he respond to General Flynn’s attorney’s petition for a writ of mandamus.

Congressman Doug Collins made the following point on Fox News about the judge’s actions:

He's wanting to play every position. He wants to play the defense attorney, the prosecutor. He wants to play the judge. He wants to bring in his own hearings here. This is something that's very concerning. It's no shock to me that he finally had to go get his outside counsel because he's operating in areas right here that, frankly, he needs to explain. I think the court of appeals is saying, 'This is something wrong here, we need to look at it.’ And DOJ acted properly. It happens all the time in cases. Why is he not doing this? I think he's trying to play politics here.

A couple weeks ago, Judge Sullivan appointed a retired judge to essentially prosecute General Michael Flynn because the Department of Justice said that we don’t believe this case should go forward. In a big admission, they said there was no legitimate basis for that investigation.

This is all very new legal ground. Remember, the judge initially claimed that his authority was inherent so it wasn’t codified. It wasn’t in the rules of criminal procedure. He took it and basically said if I’ve got this power in civil actions I can then take this kind of power into a criminal case. There’s a lot of constitutional rights that kick in when you’re dealing with a criminal matter.

So the appeals court tells the judge to explain what he did when he made the decision to appoint this outside counsel, the retired judge. What kind of conversations did you have with him? You’re the judge in the case. You instructed that retired judge how he should carry out his actions.

So now you have Judge Sullivan lawyering up on his own. It is a very high profile attorney in Washington, DC, Beth Wilkinson. It does indicate to me, that this is not just about responding to a writ of mandamus, but that there may be conflicts. And when there are, the judge is supposed to recuse himself.

Maybe it is because of the news coverage focusing on re-opening states and Memorial Day weekend gatherings that this judge did not realize up until Friday afternoon how serious this was.

ACLJ Director of Government Affairs Thann Bennett made the following point:

We said on the broadcast last week how this granting of the writ of mandamus only happens in extraordinary circumstances and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said that is certainly the case. This is an extraordinary situation. It looks like Judge Sullivan has overstepped his bounds. He’s tried to be Article 1, Article 2, and Article 3. I think that the judge probably does realize he’s in hot water, but rather than backing down he seems to be doubling down.

It looks to me that he’s trying to play judge, advocate, and prosecutor. Now he realizes he is forced to play defendant because of the actions he took. The hiring of this attorney, well-known in the D.C. area, I think it is an acknowledgement on his part that he’s in deep water.

The full broadcast is complete with more in-depth discussion analysis of the latest events of the General Flynn case by our team.

Watch the full broadcast below.