Judge Sullivan does the equivalent of pasting 'I’m guilty' on his forehead

[mystery-ak]

May 24, 2020
Judge Sullivan does the equivalent of pasting 'I’m guilty' on his forehead
By Andrea Widburg

From the beginning of the Michael Flynn case, Judge Sullivan has been hostile to Flynn. By December 2018, based upon a misreading of the facts, Sullivan accused Flynn of conduct amounting to treason and said that he felt “disdain” and “disgust” for what he believed Flynn had done.

Sullivan’s behavior, however, went from hostile to bizarre when the Department of Justice, having uncovered massive wrongdoing the FBI’s and DOJ’s handling of the Flynn matter, moved to dismiss the case. On Saturday, though, Judge Sullivan managed to escalate from bizarre to . . . well, maybe paranoid is the correct word.

A Motion to Dismiss a criminal case is a routine procedure when the government realizes, for whatever reason, that there is no further reason to prosecute a defendant. Because the Constitution gives the prosecutor sole discretion about whether to bring a case and then, having brought it, whether to miss it, the judge has a limited role – and that role is to protect the defendant.

more
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/judge_sullivan_does_the_equivalent_of_pasting_im_guilty_on_his_forehead.html

[PeteS in CA]

If one reads almost the entire article, it finally comes to what the headline speaks of:

But that’s not what Sullivan did. Instead, Sullivan hired Beth Wilkinson, a very high-profile Washington D.C. attorney to represent him before the appellate court. From a legal standpoint, this is beyond strange.

You have to understand that, in the ordinary course of appellate rulings, all that happens is that the lower court’s order is affirmed or reversed. It’s not about the judge; it’s about the judge’s ruling. In this case, the appellate court is asking the judge to explain his ruling, meaning that it’s still not about Sullivan qua Sullivan. Instead, the court wants to understand Sullivan’s thought processes to see if there’s anything there that could justify his decision-making.

When Sullivan armed himself with a lawyer, he effectively announced to the world that this isn’t just about whether the court will reverse his decision-making or remove him from the case. Instead, Sullivan is worried that the appellate court will look at his conduct, rather than his legal reasoning. ...