The case of Michael Flynn has become a farce.

Tuesday’s four-hour hearing before the full DC Circuit Court of Appeals on whether District Judge Emmet Sullivan should grant the government’s motion to dismiss Michael Flynn’s case, certainly had all the trappings of a legal proceeding. There were judges asking questions and lawyers telling lawyers things. However, it was, at the bottom, a farce. It seems likely that the entire circuit will rule that the case should be returned to Sullivan for further proceedings, but what then? The way in which Sullivan’s lawyer presented his case made it clear that the judge and the judiciary are now not interested in revealing the behind-the-scenes manipulation and possible direct corruption that went into securing the decision of the Department of Justice to leave one of Donald Trump’s closest allies is off the hook.

Because of this failure, the public can never learn the full extent of the astonishingly irregular process by which the Justice Department intervened in the case. According to a New York Times report, it started last year after Flynn’s current attorney, Sidney Powell, reached out directly to Attorney General William Barr and persuaded him to consider the case, despite Flynn’s guilty plea. Senior Justice Department officials later intervened to change Flynn’s sentence for reprimand, arguing that probation would be an acceptable sentence. In May, of course, the Justice Department moved to relinquish the charge that claimed in a 20-page submission that as a result of the review Barr had ordered at Powell’s request, the government did not believe it was his fault. could establish, because his misunderstandings with the FBI were not “material” for any well-predicted investigation – an extremely dubious claim. It is worth remembering that Trump has been trying for years to get Flynn out of legal trouble, including when he asked former FBI Director James Comey in the early months of the administration to go easy on Flynn.

In light of all this, a reasonable judge would have some questions about the government’s motion to dismiss. But after Sullivan ordered additional briefings and a verbal argument, the department joined Flynn’s petition to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that Sullivan had no authority to do so himself – and that the case should be heard immediately. dismissed.

While the whole circuit seems to reject the motion, the decision on a practical level has little to do with the relevant legal norms and much more to do with the question of whether the judge should take the government’s claims at face value . There has been only one real question at the heart of the dispute: do you believe the government is telling the truth? If you do, the motion must be dismissed. Seen everything that happened, though would you?

For that reason, it was insane to listen to Sullivan’s lawyer, Beth Wilkinson, effectively in the corner about the critical issue of whether Sullivan is allowed to hear evidence or do fact-finding before the motion is filed, or , instead, if he is limited to hearing only arguments from lawyers about the question. Wilkinson repeatedly tried to convince the court that “no facts have been requested”, that “there can be little left to discuss at the hearing,” and that the government’s concerns were that Sullivan’s motives for dismissal could be verified. “speculation” because he does not know what he will do and may just “have to end up following the arguments” and give the motion.

Sure, Wilkinson tried to hedge this in a way that seems to preserve the possibility that Sullivan could do more. The idea, however, that Sullivan does not know what he would want to do at such a hearing as left to his own devices strains credibility. Cowed by a conservative political-legal-media complex to take this sick position, anything more than a pro forma hearing seems unlikely, as it could be disgraced among Flynn’s supporters and would result in even more appealing.

If this is what ends up being Sullivan “winning” on appeal, you have to wonder what the point was. The end result will be low-level legal proceedings.

As several of the judges pointed out on Tuesday when questioning the government, it is not at all uncommon for courts to submit the truth or completeness of the claims by attorneys from the Justice Department, who made Wilkinson’s retention to this effect. concept to make even closer to the merits. In fact, it happened in parallel in a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York in which a prosecution was underway for violations of sanctions against Iran. In that case, the government obtained a conviction and asked them, months later, to dismiss the conviction as a result of “revelation-related problems” (read: violations of discovery) in the course of the prosecution. The judge finally granted the motion, but not before asking a number of questions about what actually happened, including if the government had made any false representations to them during the proceedings. The agency answered these questions immediately, without objection, in a nearly 20-page, single-space letter following a review of documents and internal interviews that yielded several unusual revelations.

At this point, you would have to be almost comically confident to accept a claim from this justice department at face value if there is a significant chance that it could be false. To remember just a few facts: Barr himself was politely named a liar by a fellow judge in Sullivan’s court in March. In June, a former high-ranking Justice Department official in the George HW Bush administration testified before the House Judiciary Committee that Barr “regularly borrows[s], ‘And his written testimony provided a robust case in support of the motion. Around the same time, the department’s internal ethics watchdog took the position that there was nothing wrong with the Justice Department launching full “pretextual” investigations. Several months ago, lawyers from my old office took the transparent ridiculous position – in cases I once worked on, and were hesitantly dragged back – that they are free to file “compliant pretextual” applications in court to gain more time get to investigate cases. Weeks ago, four former presidents of the DC Bar Association signed nearly 40 pages, with one space inviting letter asking for Barr’s investigation for violating ethical rules, including the theory that he “repeatedly engaged in dishonest and deceptive behavior. ” And Barr’s recent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee proved, as one commenter correctly put it, “a pattern of deception, evasion, and misrepresentation.” Finally, Chief Justice John Roberts has twice fired the administration over the past 14 months for presenting leading-edge arguments for government actions in the Census and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

If Sullivan acknowledged the broad reasons for being skeptical about the government’s motives for dismissing the case and took a confirmatory interest in fact-finding, it would have been entirely reasonable. It would also not have been a potential pardon for Trump, who has already planned the sentence of ally Roger Stone, who was far more aggregating in his facts. But so what. At least doing this basic fact-finding would make clear the truth behind this matter which is already so obvious – that the government would be rationally reverse-manipulated by an unusual process so that a presidential ally would be immune to control.