Judge Sullivan is not a happy man

Josh Barro and Ken White always call him Longsuffering Federal Judge Sullivan.  He appears to have reached the end of his rope on this one.

Someone should.

The top of the food chain?  Would that be DeJoy or Trump?

UPDATE:

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

The Postal Service said Wednesday that it completed court-ordered ballot checks late Tuesday after missing a deadline earlier in the day to process around 300,000 ballots that had not been delivered to election offices.

[...]

But the sweep was completed hours after the 3 p.m. deadline imposed by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan.

  The Hill

We'll see if LSFJ Sullivan is mollified.

The Flynn case just keeps going

And getting more interesting.

The story at Politico.

I wonder if at the end he said...

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Never Ending Story of Mike Flynn

That was this morning. 

Judges on the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals intimated Tuesday that they're hesitant to force a lower court judge to dismiss the criminal charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The nearly four-hour hearing conducted by teleconference before 10 circuit court judges challenged arguments brought by Flynn's attorney and the government that District Court Judge, Emmet Sullivan, had acted outside his constitutional authority by not immediately granting the Justice Department's request to dismiss the charges against Flynn.

[...]

In June, a three-judge panel ruled 2 to 1 in favor of Flynn, who had filed an emergency appeal after Sullivan did not immediately dismiss his case following the government's move to dismiss the criminal charges against him. The three judges who made the initial ruling were part of Tuesday's larger panel, which opted to rehear the matter after Sullivan appealed and asked for what is called an en banc hearing — that is, before the full court.

[...]

The appeals court will also review whether or not Sullivan should be removed from the case because of what Flynn's team deems "glaring bias."

  CBS

He's no doubt sick and tired of this bullshit.

During arguments, [Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey] Wall revealed that Attorney General William Barr, who ultimately made the decision to drop the criminal case against Flynn, may have more non-public information at his disposal than was made available in the earlier filing to dismiss the case.

"I just wanted to make clear that it may be possible that the Attorney General had before him information that he was not able to share with the court," Wall explained. "What we put in front of the court were the reasons that we could, but it may not be the whole picture available to the executive branch."

Oh, THAT ought to convince the judges. Your honors, we might have information we can't let you see. Believe us, it's convincing.

How embarrassing.

Several judges questioned [Sidney Powell, an attorney for Flynn,] on the role a jurist should play in situations in which the government dismisses charges. Powell replied that a judge should not be a "substantial" figure, characterizing it as a "pretty ministerial" position. Judge Thomas B. Griffith disagreed with her argument. "That's not helpful Ms. Powell," Griffith said. "The judge has to do some thinking about it. He's not just a rubber stamp."

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Meanwhile, in Trump lawsuit land

That would be the judge having a firm grasp on the obvious.

Wow

[John Dowd, a] lawyer for President Donald Trump asked for a “heads up” from former national Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s attorney as Flynn was poised to enter a cooperation agreement with prosecutors from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office, according to a transcript of the message made available Friday.

[...]

The message, much of which is included in Mueller’s report, is one of the most concrete examples yet of how people close to the president apparently sought to influence those in contact with Mueller.

“This is clearly a baseless, political document designed to smear and damage the reputation of counsel and innocent people,” Dowd said in an emailed statement following the release of the transcript.

  Bloomberg

What the hell is he talking about? The document "designed to smear and damge the reputation..." is a transcript of a voicemail he left for Flynn's attorney.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered prosecutors earlier this month to make public a transcript of the voice recording, as well as transcripts of other recordings of Flynn, including conversations he had with Russian officials. Sullivan also asked prosecutors to provide portions the Mueller report that relate to Flynn -- in full, without Justice Department redactions.

Prosecutors didn’t provide any unredacted portions of the report, saying there were none that were relevant to the judge’s order.

They also said they aren’t releasing any other transcripts. They said they didn’t rely on any other recordings to establish Flynn’s guilt.

If the judge really asked for transcripts of all Flynn conversations with Russians, it probably wasn't wise to say in essence, he doesn't need them. But I'm not a lawyer.*

Flynn is awaiting sentencing in Sullivan’s court after pleading guilty to lying to investigators about his contacts with former Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

About a hundred years ago, it seems.

A partial transcript of the [Dowd] voicemail was previously made public in Mueller’s report, which described it as part of a “sequence of events could have had the potential to affect Flynn’s decision to cooperate, as well as the extent of that cooperation.”

[...]

It was left on Nov. 22, 2017, days before Flynn formally entered his plea deal with Mueller and after Flynn’s lawyers informed the President’s legal team they could no longer have confidential conversations due to Flynn’s cooperation.

[...]

Dowd, in his statement Friday, called the obstruction section of Mueller’s report “a baseless, political document designed to smear and damage the reputation of counsel and innocent people.”

  TPM

Dowd statement excerpt:

Glad to get that cleared up. He wasn't calling his own voicemail baseless.  This is the problem reading articles that quote pieces of things without clearly tying them to their proper references.

He claimed that Mueller “knows and his March 2019 report reflects there was no conflict of interest between counsel for the President and LtGen Flynn involving the matters under investigation as reflected in the unprecedented cooperation by the President with all Special Counsel requests including materials and testimony describing LtGen Flynn and his resignation from office.”

Unprecedented cooperation. Like refusing to be intereviewed? Declining to even answer some written questions? That kind of cooperation?

UPDATE:

*UPDATE:

Alan Dershowitz would like to rewrite laws that impinge on the Trump cabal

Just another Fox whore.












Alan Dershowitz is compromised, and here's one reason why:

He's a friend of Epstein (along with Trump).



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Judge Sullivan's THIRD case

As it happens, Judge Sullivan was all over the administration*'s asylum policies long before Tuesday, when he got famous by taking three feet of skin off Michael Flynn's tail assembly. Famously, last August, when told by government lawyers that a mother and her daughter who had come here seeking asylum were already on their way back to their home country, Sullivan told the lawyers, "Turn that plane around and bring those people back to the United States."

And, not for nothing, but, if the suit gets that far, it is Judge Sullivan who is presiding over the lawsuit brought by Democratic congresscritters that accuses the president* of violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. Sooner or later, god willing, the president* may have to appear before Judge Sullivan, either as a witness or a defendant. I would pay top-dollar for a ticket to that.

  Charles P Pierce

Wouldn't we all.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Judge Sullivan's other case

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UPDATE:  Just because I laughed out loud at this...

As it happens, Judge Sullivan was all over the administration*'s asylum policies long before Tuesday, when he got famous by taking three feet of skin off Michael Flynn's tail assembly.

  Charles P Pierce

Charlie does turn a nice phrase.

Famously, last August, when told by government lawyers that a mother and her daughter who had come here seeking asylum were already on their way back to their home country, Sullivan told the lawyers, "Turn that plane around and bring those people back to the United States."

And, not for nothing, but, if the suit gets that far, it is Judge Sullivan who is presiding over the lawsuit brought by Democratic congresscritters that accuses the president* of violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. Sooner or later, god willing, the president* may have to appear before Judge Sullivan, either as a witness or a defendant. I would pay top-dollar for a ticket to that.

Flynn sentence hearing update

I wonder what his "already-planned international travel" is.  Or if that was just to cover the possibility, not that there actually was any.

Flynn hearing odds and ends

That indictment  was for illegal lobbying on behalf of Turkey.






About the Flynn memo suggesting the FBI tricked him into lying and not warning him that was illegal:










You have to wonder why the lawyer thought that would be a good ploy in the first place.  Also I wonder how they came up with it.  Was that before or after or in concert with Alan Dershowitz and Fox News hosts started whining about Flynn being entrapped?  Are Flynn's lawyers consulting/coordinating with Sean Hannity and/or Trump and Rudy?








And would this be cause for a suit against his lawyers so that Flynn could recoup his attorneys' fees?










Maybe some day when the whole shebang is over they'll explain it.









Sadly, it won't give her pause to question herself - nor will it give Trumpettes pause.  These people have no shame and they can't be swayed by logic or the truth.




In other words, a perfect fit for the Trump cabal.



That's a pretty clear hint to the Flynn team.








And, yet, I have to wonder why the judge gave Flynn such a break as he did by several times pressing him about possibly postponing his sentence.  Flynn got a sweet deal from Mueller, and now a huge help from Judge Sullivan.  Don't try this at home.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.