Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall this week joined a group of 15 state attorneys general in urging the federal district court in Washington, D.C. to grant the Department of Justice’s motion to drop the case against Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Flynn.
The Department of Justice’s attempt to drop the criminal charges against Flynn is currently at a standstill after a federal judge declined to grant the DOJ’s motion to dismiss last week.
Alabama’s attorney general believes the steps taken by the judge “betrays a lack of regard for the separation of powers,” according to a statement released by Marshall’s office on Monday evening.
“The only branch of government given constitutional authorization to prosecute is the executive,” Marshall argued.
The legal instrument filed by the attorneys general in support of Flynn is an amicus brief, primarily authored by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. The brief cites numerous precedents for why accepting the motion to dismiss Flynn’s charges is proper legal procedure.
The 14 additional signers of the brief are all Republicans. They hail from Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
Background on Flynn, as reported by Yellowhammer News last week:
After a distinguished career in the Army, including service as President Barack Obama’s director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Flynn was chosen by President Donald Trump in 2017 to be the current administration’s first national security advisor.
After 24 days in the administration Flynn resigned at Trump’s request after admitting to deceiving Vice President Mike Pence about conversations Flynn had with Russian diplomat Sergey Kislyak.
It was later revealed through media reports that Flynn was the subject of numerous investigations due to his connections with foreign officials in Turkey and Russia. Most of the investigations originated during the Obama administration but were continued during the early part of the Trump administration.
During one investigation, Flynn made comments to members of the FBI that constituted lies in the mind of then-special prosecutor Robert Mueller.
Mueller decided to charge Flynn with lying to a federal agent, Flynn subsequently plead guilty to the charges.
In recent weeks, notes taken by some of those who investigated Flynn were unsealed by a judge. It has been alleged the notes point to overaggressive and/or unethical tactics by the prosecutors and investigators.
Many conservative politicians, such as former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, have called the documents evidence of a “perjury trap.”
Bill Barr, the current attorney general in the Trump administration, decided to drop the charges which caused some controversy in the legal community.
Pence said recently he would be happy to see Flynn back in the Trump administration.
The attorneys general make the case that “the judiciary [must] respect the decisions the Constitution leaves to the executive—that is what gives meaning to the ‘concept of a government of separate and coordinate powers.’”
Henry Thornton is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him by email: [email protected] or on Twitter @HenryThornton95
