He got book learnin' and everythang

You just know these people who are fired/getting fired like Comey, Dana Boente and Wray are just like....

"You can't fire me!!! Don't you know WHO I am? I'm important, rules don't apply to me. I MAKE the rules!!!!"

quote:

"You can't fire me!!! Don't you know WHO I am? I'm important, rules don't apply to me. I MAKE the rules!!!!"

Every time I see something like this my mind goes to this scene in Shooter

Yep

Firing is one thing. But prosecutions need to start. Otherwise they never paid a price.

Good interview W Sen Ron Johnson




Sen Johnson : obama administration totally corrupted the transition to the Trump administration

Leaks:

Bush - 9
obama - 8
President Trump -125 in the first 126 days of his administration. Deep state traitors. 62 of these leaks damaged national security



seen at CTH

CTH = Conservative TreeHouse

A very informative timeline at:

https://theconservativetreehou...tration/#more-193182

^^^ Damning information!

I was hoping Judge Sullivan would have come to his senses by the deadline today, but that isn't the case.

From the Washington Post, 6/1/20:

Judge Sullivan says he is not required to ‘rubber stamp’ DOJ’s bid to dismiss Flynn case

By Ann E. Marimow and Carol D. Leonnig
June 1, 2020 at 3:39 p.m. EDT

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan should not be required to act as a “mere rubber stamp” for the government’s unusual move to undo the guilty plea of President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the judge’s lawyers told a federal appeals court in Washington on Monday.

Sullivan’s attorneys asked the appeals court to stay on the sidelines to give the judge an opportunity to ensure the “integrity of the judicial process” and to rule on the Justice Department’s request to dismiss Flynn’s case.

The judge must evaluate Flynn’s dramatically different claims, Sullivan’s lawyer Beth Wilkinson told the court: “What, if anything, should Judge Sullivan do about Mr. Flynn’s sworn statements to the court, where he repeatedly admitted to the crime and to the voluntariness of his guilty plea, only to now claim that he never lied to the government and was pressured and misled into pleading guilty?”

The filing from Sullivan, defending his investigation into the Justice Department’s reversal, is the latest development in the extraordinary case. It comes after Flynn’s lawyers asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to immediately order Sullivan to get rid of the matter and accused him of bias.


The Justice Department is expected to file later on Monday.

Sullivan refused to go along in early May when the government moved to abandon its long-running prosecution of Flynn, who admitted lying to the FBI in 2017 about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States before Trump took office. The department’s change of heart came after Attorney General William P. Barr determined that the FBI had no valid basis to question Flynn, so any lies he told were irrelevant to former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The decision to undo a guilty plea prompted criticism and alarm, including from former DOJ officials and law enforcement leaders, concerned that the department was bending to political pressure from the Trump administration.

The appeals court agreed to review Sullivan’s actions and gave the judge 10 days to respond to Flynn’s request.

With the government and Flynn now on the same side, Sullivan defended the decision to appoint retired federal judge John Gleeson to argue against the department’s position. Gleeson is also charged with examining whether Flynn should face a criminal contempt hearing for perjury after pleading guilty to a crime that he and the Justice Department now say did not happen.

“Someone needs to fill the adversarial gap to ensure full consideration of the issues, and a former prosecutor and federal judge is well positioned to do so,” Sullivan’s lawyers told the court. “In any event, Judge Sullivan’s record shows that he will not blindly accept Judge Gleeson’s recommendations.”

For more than two years, the government took the position that Flynn’s false statements to the FBI were material and relevant. As recently as January, prosecutors recommended the judge sentence Flynn to up to six months in prison. Sullivan’s filing notes that the move to dismiss the case was not signed by any front-line prosecutors who had previously worked on the case.

“It is unprecedented for an Acting U.S. Attorney to contradict the solemn representations that career prosecutors made time and again, and undermine the district court’s legal and factual findings, in moving on his own to dismiss the charge years after two different federal judges accepted the defendant’s plea,” Sullivan’s lawyers wrote.

There is disagreement among legal scholars and former judges over how Sullivan should handle the case at this juncture.

Prosecutors have broad authority to make charging decisions, but federal rules require prosecutors to get permission from the presiding judge to formally dismiss criminal charges. In this case, Flynn pleaded guilty under oath before two different judges, and he told Sullivan at a 2018 hearing that no one had coerced him to admit his guilty and that he had no intention of taking back his plea.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...133bbb482_story.html

Damn....that judge (and I use that term very loosely) is going all in with his corruption. He must be getting paid well or someone has some blackmail material on him. The higher court needs to slap him down HARD!

ok, so let me make sure I got this right...could come in handy in the future

the government brings charges

the government investigates

the government decided the charges are bogus and wants to drop the case

the judge can tell the government to go pound sand

The Department of Justice fires back:

Judge Sullivan's lawyers hint at 'reason to question' DOJ's motives in new Michael Flynn case filing; DOJ fires back

By Gregg Re | Fox News

Washington, D.C. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan's lawyers issued an exceedingly rare response on his behalf to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, explaining that the judge hadn't dismissed the case against former national security advisor Michael Flynn -- as requested by both federal prosecutors and Flynn's lawyers after a mountain of exculpatory information surfaced -- in part because "unusual developments" provided a "reason to question" the Justice Department's motives.

Minutes later, the DOJ submitted its own filing calling for the case to be dismissed, and slamming efforts to keep the prosecution alive by doubting the DOJ's integrity. The appellate court had invited the DOJ to weigh in on the matter.

"This Court should issue a writ of mandamus compelling dismissal," the DOJ wrote, in a filing signed by Solicitor General Noel Francisco. "Under Articles II and III of the Constitution, the power to prosecute belongs to the Executive, not the Judiciary. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48, read against the backdrop of that constitutional principle, required the district court to grant the government's motion to dismiss the indictment with prejudice because that motion was unopposed."

That rule of procedure states: "The government may, with leave of court, dismiss an indictment, information, or complaint."

"That language does not authorize a court to stand in the way of a dismissal the defendant does not oppose, and any other reading of the Rule would violate both Article II and Article III," the DOJ said. "Nor, under the circumstances of this case, may the district court assume the role of prosecutor and initiate criminal charges of its own."

The DOJ concluded: "The district court plans to subject the Executive's enforcement decision to extensive judicial inquiry, scrutiny, oversight, and involvement. Under the Supreme Court's and this Court's precedents, it is clear and indisputable that the district court has no authority to embark on that course."

The DOJ went on to warn that Sullivan and his appointed amicus "may not conduct evidentiary proceedings based on speculation about the government's motives."

The amicus appointed by Sullivan, retired federal judge John Gleeson, has openly criticized the Trump administration's handling of Flynn's case, raising concerns that he was selected to improperly bolster Sullivan's efforts to keep the Flynn case going even though both the government and defendant want it dismissed. In 2013, Gleeson himself held that “the government has near-absolute power under [the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure] to extinguish a case that it has brought" -- but he has since apparently changed his opinion.

The responses came after Flynn's attorney, Sidney Powell, had filed an emergency writ of mandamus to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last month seeking the immediate removal of Sullivan from the case, saying that under appellate precedent set by the 2016 "United States v. Fokker Services" case, Sullivan or his replacement must dismiss the prosecution. Powell also cited Sullivan's bizarre comments, including his suggestion that Flynn could have been tried for "treason" and his apparent lack of familiarity with some facts of the case.

Under "Fokker," prosecutors' decision to drop a case can be overruled only in extreme cases. Powell asserted, citing the case, that a "district court cannot deny the Government’s motion to dismiss because the judge has 'a disagreement with the prosecution’s exercise of charging authority,' such as 'a view that the defendant should stand trial' or 'that more serious charges should be brought.'"

Additionally, Powell said that under "Fokker," judges cannot dispute the “conclusion that additional prosecution or punishment would not serve the public interest.” (“We are unaware … of any appellate decision that actually upholds a denial of a motion to dismiss a charge” on grounds that dismissal would not serve the “public interest,” the D.C. Circuit stated in the Fokker case.).

After reviewing Powell's request, the appellate court took the extraordinary step of ordering Sullivan to reply, and he in turn retained prominent D.C. attorney Beth Wilkinson -- who wasted no time in asserting that the virtually unprecedented posture of the case had met the "Fokker" standard.

"The unique facts of this case warrant evaluation by the trial judge before any review by this court," Wilkinson's team said in Monday's filing on behalf of Sullivan, referencing the high standard for the granting of a writ of mandamus, or order to compel the lower court to act, before there has been a final decision on the merits of the case. "For now, it suffices to say that the unusual developments in this case provide at least a plausible 'reason to question' the 'bona fides' of the government's motion."

Wilkinson continued: "While this court observed in 'Fokker' that separation-of-powers principles limit a judge's role in reviewing the government's charging decisions, it also explained that different separation-of-powers considerations may exist where the district court already accepted a plea and was proceeding to sentencing. Finally, the unusual facts of this case raise at least a plausible judicial question, anticipated by 'Fokker,' whether the presumption of regularity for prosecutorial decisions is overcome."

Ryan Fayhee, an attorney at Hughes Hubbard & Reed who previously served as a top prosecutor and national security official at the DOJ, told Fox News the appellate court might find a reason to dismiss the relevance of the "Fokker" case. "Fokker" concerned a deferred prosecution agreement, and "not a knowing and voluntary guilty plea," Fayhee said. "In that case the judge’s role was ministerial and limited to whether the Speedy Trial Act could be extended in the interest of justice; it did not consider whether the Justice Department may dismiss a case post-plea (an unprecedented and novel issue); nor whether a district court judge may initiate a contempt proceeding as is being considered here."

The DOJ has reversed course and pushed for dismissal in the Flynn case ever since explosive, newly unsealed evidence emerged in April documenting the FBI's efforts to target Flynn -- including ex-FBI counterintelligence head Bill Priestap's handwritten memo debating whether the FBI's "goal" was "to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired."

The documents also indicated that anti-Trump ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok pushed to keep the Flynn case alive in early January 2017, even though career bureau officials wanted the matter closed.

Days later, on Jan. 24, 2017, Strzok and mysterious, little-known FBI agent Joe Pientka interviewed Flynn in the White House and questioned him about his calls with Russia's then-Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Because those calls were already recorded and in the FBI's possession, and because the FBI had already cleared Flynn of any wrongdoing in the calls, the DOJ has told Sullivan that any misstatements Flynn uttered about the calls were immaterial and could not reasonably give rise to a criminal prosecution.

"Was [Sullivan] required to grant the government's post-plea motion to dismiss, and reverse his findings that Mr. Flynn's false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Russia were material, without any inquiry into the facts set forth in, and surrounding, the government's filing?" Wikinson asked the appellate court in Monday's filing.

During the White House interview, Flynn told the agents "not really" when asked if he had sought to convince Kislyak not to escalate a brewing fight with the U.S. over sanctions imposed by the Obama administration, according to a later, contested FD-302 witness report prepared by the FBI weeks after the interview. Flynn also reportedly demurred when asked if he had asked Russia to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution that condemned Israel’s settlements in the West Bank.

In the alternative, Priestap's note suggested a possible goal at the White House interview was to get Flynn "to admit to breaking the Logan Act" when he spoke to Kislyak during the presidential transition period. The Logan Act has never been successfully used in a criminal prosecution and has a questionable constitutional status; it was enacted in 1799 in an era before telephones, and was intended to prevent individuals from falsely claiming to represent the United States government abroad.

Priestap's memo conspicuously surfaced only this month, even though the Justice Department and FBI had been under an obligation to turn over all relevant, potentially exculpatory materials to Flynn's legal team since February 2018. Attorney General Bill Barr had appointed U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen to review the DOJ's handling of the Flynn case, and Jensen apparently unearthed the documents.

"It is unusual for a criminal defendant to claim innocence and move to withdraw his guilty plea after repeatedly swearing under oath that he committed the crime," Wilkinson's team said. "It is unprecedented for an Acting U.S. Attorney to contradict the solemn representations that career prosecutors made time and time again, and undermine the district court's legal and factual findings, in moving on his own to dismiss the charge years after two different federal judges accepted the defendant's plea."

Flynn sold his home amid pressure from prosecutors, who also suggested they might charge Flynn and his son for violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) unless he pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to FBI agents. Sullivan has said he is also reviewing whether Flynn knowingly lied to the court as part of the statements he made during his plea. While Flynn acknowledged he did not properly disclose his work with Turkey, as required by FARA, he wasn't charged with that conduct. (FARA prosecutions have increased sharply in recent years after decades of non-enforcement; The New York Times has reported, citing the Justice Department, that "from 1966 until 2015, the Justice Department pursued only seven FARA cases.")

Fox News has previously reported that the newly released Flynn documents cast doubt on whether Brandon Van Grack, a Justice Department prosecutor and former member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Team, complied with Sullivan's order to produce favorable evidence to Flynn. Van Grack has since been removed from the case.

Van Grack has long informed Sullivan that the government’s so-called "Brady" obligations, referring to prosecutors' duty to turn over exculpatory materials to defendants, have been met. In an October 2019 filing, Van Grack denied governmental misconduct and assured the court that the government “has complied, and will continue to comply, with its discovery and disclosure obligations, including those imposed pursuant to Brady and the Court’s Standing Order.”

What Van Grack didn’t inform the court about – and didn’t provide to Flynn – was the newly unsealed January 4, 2017 "Closing Communication" from the FBI Washington Field Office, which recommended the FBI close its investigation of Flynn, as its exhaustive search through government databases “did not yield any information on which to predicate further investigative efforts."

Van Grack also failed to provide evidence to Flynn’s attorneys that anti-Trump former FBI agent Peter Strzok then immediately intervened and instructed the FBI case manager handling the Flynn investigation to keep the probe open, followed by indicators that the bureau would seek to investigate Flynn for possible violations of an obscure 18th century law known as the Logan Act -- which has never been utilized in a modern prosecution.

Nevertheless, Wilkinson argued, it was appropriate for Sullivan to appoint third-party amici to provide arguments, given that the defense and prosecution were now on the same side.

"Because the parties before him now support the same relief, Judge Sullivan turned to an approach used by federal courts accorss the country, as well as district courts in this Circuit: He appointed an amicus to present counterarguments, and set a briefing schedule giving the government and Mr. Flynn the last work."

"Neither the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure nor the district court’s local rules authorize amicus participation in criminal cases," Powell wrote in her filing. "Prior to issuance of its extraordinary May 12, 2020, order, the district judge adhered scrupulously to the district court’s rules, denying some two dozen attempts by third parties to intervene or file amicus briefs in this very case."

It would not be unprecedented for the government to successfully move to dismiss a case after securing a conviction. In fact, Sullivan himself tossed the conviction of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens in 2009, when it emerged the government had not produced a slew of exculpatory "Brady" material.

Sullivan himself has come under the microscope, ever since he suggested Flynn may have committed treason, in the bizarre December 2018 courtroom outburst, and seemingly confused key details about Flynn's overseas lobbying work. More recently, Sullivan has suggested he isn't bothered by the FBI's missing FD-302 witness report of agents' January 24, 2017 White House interview with Flynn that Comey has previously said was prepared within days of the interview, as required by policy.

"[T]hings happen and documents are lost," Sullivan stated. "I mean, it just happens.”

Former FBI SWAT agent James Gagliano called that a "shockingly cavalier" reaction by Sullivan. Gagliano, who initially defended the FBI's Flynn probe, has more recently said Flynn was "railroaded," after this month's bombshell revelations.

"The district judge’s manifest confusion about the facts of this case, accusing General Flynn of treason and having 'sold out his country,' and his punitive intentions are well documented," Powell wrote. Sullivan also said he had "disdain" and "disgust" for Flynn's actions.

https://www.foxnews.com/politi...js-motion-to-dismiss

https://thefederalist.com/2020...-dismiss-flynn-case/

The actions of the rogue federal judge in the Michael Flynn criminal case are an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power that represent a “ recipe for tyranny ,” seven top senators, including the Senate Majority leader, told a federal court on Monday.

In an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) blasted the refusal of Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to grant the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss charges against Flynn.

Sens. Mike Braun (R-Indiana), Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Rick Scott (R-Florida), and Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) also signed the brief.

Sullivan’s actions violate the Constitution’s clear separation of powers on which branch of government may prosecute American citizens, the senators assert, citing the U.S. Constitution, quotes from Founding Fathers, and longstanding federal court precedent. According to the U.S. Constitution, the Executive Branch that houses the Department of Justice has the exclusive discretion to begin and to end a prosecution while the Judiciary has the power to decide cases or controversies. Just as the Executive cannot direct the Judiciary’s rulings, the Judiciary cannot direct the Executive’s prosecutorial decisions, the senators write.

Are there no provisions at all made to remove Federal judges? Has no Federal judge ever lost their mind, committed some terrible crime, been caught receiving bribes, etc? Appointed for life. Got it, but doesn't even the SCOTUS have provisions for removing sitting justices?

https://www.brennancenter.org/...val-judges-explainer

What is judicial impeachment?

Impeachment is a process by which the political branches of government – usually the legislature – can remove judges from office. Because the impeachment power lies primarily in the hands of politicians, it is at times threatened for partisan reasons, but the impeachment and removal of judges is in fact rare and usually limited to grave ethical or criminal misconduct such as perjury, fraud, or conflicts of interest.

How does the impeachment process work?

Federal and state constitutions provide different mechanisms for impeachment of judges, but impeachment is generally a two-step process.

With respect to federal judges, under Article I of the United States Constitution, the House of Representatives has the power to impeach, and the Senate the power to hold a trial to determine whether removal is appropriate. The House can impeach a judge with a simple majority vote. However, a judge may only be removed from office following a trial and a vote to convict by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

How common is it to impeach judges?

Impeachment of judges is rare, and removal is rarer still. With respect to federal judges, since 1803, the House of Representatives has impeached only 15 judges – an average of one every 14 years – and only 8 of those impeachments were followed by convictions in the Senate. Justice Samuel Chase is the only Supreme Court Justice the House has impeached, and in 1805 the Senate acquitted Chase.

Para, Federal judges can be impeached by the same Article 1 method used against President Trump. It's rarely done, though, with only about 15 Federal judges impeached in U.S. history, and only 8 of those being convicted in the Senate (the article where I found those numbers is two years old, but I don't remember any such impeachments in the last couple of years). The most recent I could find was in 2010, when the Senate convicted and removed Thomas Porteous for accepting bribes and making false statements under penalty of perjury.

Edit: sdy beat me to it.

Regarding the other question, SCOTUS is not involved in the impeachment process except that the Chief Justice runs the trial of an impeached president. In other cases, the Vice President serves as president of the Senate and acts to run the trial.

^^^^^^^^

Sullivan, appointed by Bill Clinton, is a Federal District judge, confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He is classified as an "Article III" judge, (along with Supreme Court and Appeals Court) and they can only be removed by impeachment by Congress.

The DoJ filed a brief today defending the dismissal of Flynn.

One of the DoJ people signing that brief is Jocelyn Ballantine.

Andy McCarthy notes that Ballantine was one of the prosecutors that were prosecuting Flynn.

https://thefederalist.com/2020...judge-in-flynn-case/

The Department of Justice on Monday unloaded on the antics of the rogue federal judge overseeing the Michael Flynn trial, accusing him of usurping the constitutional authority of the executive branch to make prosecutorial decisions and ignoring both statutory law and federal court precedent requiring him to dismiss the case against Flynn.

In a sign of how important DOJ views the underlying constitutional issues in the case, the formal brief to the appellate court wasn’t just signed by the line attorney managing the government’s case. Instead, it was signed by Noel J. Francisco, the Solicitor General of the United States who is tasked with representing the U.S. government in the most important appellate cases across the country; Brian A. Benczkowski, the Assistant Attorney General and head of DOJ’s entire criminal division; Deputy Solicitors General Jeffrey B. Wall and Eric J. Feigin; assistants to the Solicitor General Frederick Liu and Vivek Suri; Michael R. Sherwin, the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Kenneth C. Kohl, the acting Principal Assistant United States Attorney for D.C.; and Jocelyn S. Ballantine, the line prosecutor handling the Flynn case at trial.

“The Constitution vests in the Executive Branch the power to decide when—and when not—to prosecute potential crimes,” DOJ argued in its brief. Rules of federal criminal procedure, cited by Sullivan in support of his gambit to appoint himself both judge and prosecutor in the inquisition against Flynn, “do[] not authorize a court to stand in the way of a dismissal the defendant does not oppose, and any other reading of [those rules] would violate both Article II and Article III” of the constitution, DOJ wrote.

“Nor, under the circumstances of this case, may the district court assume the role of prosecutor and initiate criminal charges of its own,” the brief continued. “Instead of inviting further proceedings the court should have granted the government’s motion to dismiss.”

In their brief to the appellate court detailing the facts of the Flynn case, Francisco and the other DOJ attorneys noted that prior to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) ambush interview of Flynn on January 24, 2017, “the FBI identified no ‘derogatory information’ about petitioner and determined that he ‘was no longer a viable candidate’ for investigation.”

“In early January 2017, the FBI stated in a draft internal memorandum that it was ‘closing [its] investigation'” of Flynn, the attorneys wrote.

Sullivan, who at one point accused Flynn, a decorated military combat veteran, of being a traitor to his country, refused to dismiss the charges and instead appointed John Gleeson, a former federal judge, to make arguments to the court about why the unopposed motion to dismiss charges should be denied. Days before Gleeson was appointed by Sullivan, Gleeson co-authored a Washington Post column calling on Sullivan to deny DOJ’s motion to dismiss the Flynn charges. Sullivan also asked Gleeson to provide the trial court with arguments to support new charges of perjury against Flynn.

“The failure to dismiss the indictment was error,” DOJ wrote in its brief. “And the court’s efforts to pursue additional charges of contempt compounded its error.”

in the brief filed by DoJ there are two especially interesting paragraphs.



Undercover Huber :

DOJ sure seems to be hinting here that Strzok and Pientka’s notes do not reflect what is written in the “final” FD-302




It has long been suspected the final "302" report was partially fabricated by the FBI

seen at:

https://twitter.com/JohnWHuber.../1267581829374246913

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
in the brief filed by DoJ there are two especially interesting paragraphs.



Undercover Huber :

DOJ sure seems to be hinting here that Strzok and Pientka’s notes do not reflect what is written in the “final” FD-302




It has long been suspected the final "302" report was partially fabricated by the FBI

seen at:

https://twitter.com/JohnWHuber.../1267581829374246913

Since those who directed the writing of the final "302" (Comey and other "7th Floor" administrators) weren't even present when the questioning took place, it appears very likely that this isn't just false information, it's being used to justify prosecution could constitute perjury and the collaboration taken to include it could constitute a good conspiracy charge against all those involved.

The only way we're going to get to the bottom of this is if people start getting charged with felonies. Once charged and shown that there is intent to prosecute, only then will people start singing.