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'Increasingly hostile': Flynn lawyers argue Judge Sullivan must recuse from case due to bias
 [Washington Times] Lawyers for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn filed a lengthy motion with the federal court on Wednesday, calling for the disqualification of Judge Emmet Sullivan, who has presided over the case since 2017, due to alleged bias against the former Trump national security adviser.The 40-page filing calling for Sullivan’s recusal, filed by former federal prosecutor and lead Flynn attorney Sidney Powell, argued that the judge’s "increasingly hostile and unprecedented words and deeds in what has become his own prosecution of General Flynn mandate his disqualification from further participation in these proceedings and the referral of his conduct to the D.C. Circuit Judicial Council" and that "the appearance of bias here is terrifying and mandates disqualification." The motion comes a week after Flynn’s lawyers and the Justice Department appeared before Sullivan to argue for the case to be dismissed. Attorney General William Barr appointed U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Jensen to review the Flynn case, after which a host of new documents deemed exculpatory by Flynn’s lawyers were discovered. The Justice Department told the district court in May "that continued prosecution of this case would not serve the interests of justice" as it sought to drop its case. Instead, Sullivan appointed retired New York Judge John Gleeson to present arguments in opposition to the Justice Department’s motion and to explore whether Flynn should be charged with perjury or contempt. Flynn’s lawyers cited the federal rules governing recusal which state, in part, that a judge "shall disqualify himself ... where he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party." They also quoted from a D.C. Circuit Court ruling in a 2019 case involving the military judge presiding over the Guantanamo Bay hearings against Abd al Rahim Hussein Muhammed al Nashiri, arguing that "by the time of his failure to follow the mandamus of the D.C. Circuit panel and his decision with his own retained counsel to take the unprecedented and improper step of filing his petition for rehearing en banc" Sullivan had "cast an intolerable cloud of partiality over his subsequent judicial conduct" and "risked undermining the public’s confidence in the judicial process." Related: Emmet Sullivan: 2020-09-01 D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Rules Against General Flynn Emmet Sullivan: 2020-08-12 Summary of 8-11 Hearing on the Flynn Case Emmet Sullivan: 2020-08-09 On Aug 11, Sullivan will appear before DC Circuit Court Posted by: Besoeker 2020-10-08 |
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