Reuters reports:

A retired judge blasted the U.S. Justice Department’s plan to drop the criminal case against President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn as corrupt on Friday and urged the judge presiding over the case to reject the move.

John Gleeson, a former trial judge and prosecutor, was named by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to argue against the department’s stance in the high-profile case in Washington. Critics have accused the department and Attorney General William Barr of going light on Flynn, a Trump ally who twice pleaded guilty in the case to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s former ambassador in Washington.

In a court filing, Gleeson said the department should not be allowed to drop the case. The department’s effort to do so was a “corrupt and politically motivated favor unworthy of our justice system,” Gleeson added.

The department unsuccessfully sought to force Sullivan to drop the charges, but an appeals court allowed the judge to consider the matter further. [Continue reading…]