Is Sullivan's Game To Delay Team Mueller Indictments By Durham?
Yesterday I quoted a lawyer son to the effect that Sullivan's perjury/contempt gambit in the Flynn case doesn't make a lot of legal sense--More On Perjury And Contempt :
Sullivan would actually be creating a huge problem because he would, in effect, be asking the government to prove Flynn knew he didn't make material false statements to the FBI but decided to plead guilty anyway. And so Flynn would certainly have the right to explain that he felt forced to plead guilty because of the threat to indict his son. ...
Besides, for a statement to be perjury, I am 99% sure the defendant has to make a false statement of fact, not a false legal conclusion--and materiality is a legal conclusion. I'm sure Flynn admitted to making conflicting statements to federal investigators, but it's not perjury for him to believe at the time of the plea that his statements were material.
My expressed view was that all of this is essentially a delaying tactic by Sullivan--he's stalling--to which my son responds:
Makes sense. At this point Sullivan is just making the law up as he goes along—and entering long briefing schedules—just to drag it out.
That much is perfectly clear, and as I keep saying: every lawyer and judge in the land can recognize this.
The question then becomes--to what purpose is this delay, the stalling tactics that make a mockery of justice (which is denied when delayed) and the federal courts? This means that Sullivan is in some sense a co-conspirator in the big picture conspiracy, but what exactly is his game?
Here I speculate--to a degree that I'm not normally comfortable with, but which is necessary at this juncture.
Two things have been clear to me for a long time--which I've maintained repeatedly:
1) Durham is aiming for indictments from Team Mueller;
2) The clearest path right now--from our vantage point--to the heart of Team Mueller and the big picture conspiracy is through the Flynn case.
I'm not sure exactly how this works, but I'm speculating that Sullivan is seeking to delay peforming what is now simply his "ministerial function" (as higher courts have characterized any judge's role at this point} of dismissing the prosecution of Flynn because he wants to delay entering a final judgment in the case . I'm guessing that the specific reason for this is that, as long as there is no final judgment in the Flynn case, John Durham's planned indictments of Team Mueller personnel--indictments that are based at least in part, but possibly a large part, on the abuses of the Flynn case--may also be delayed.
I'm open to correction on this, of course, but I'm trying to make real and specific sense of what's going on. Because in any above-board legal sense it makes NO sense.
Needless to say, if true, this scheme cries out for the remedy Brett Tolman, Margot Cleveland, and others are now calling for: a writ of mandamus ordering the dismissal of all charges against Michael Flynn and removal of Sullivan from the case on remand.
ADDENDUM: Also needless to say--but I'm saying it anyway--is that any indictment of Team Mueller personnel would have a major impact on the entire Russia Hoax narrative going into the 2020 elections. Obviously the continuing revelations will have an effect, but indictments are special. The spectacle of a federal judge colluding in plain sight with political operatives in the context of a criminal case is far beyond unseemly.
Desperate times, desperate measures.
UPDATE: J. E. Dyer (h/t aNanyMouse) addresses these issues and offers a number of explanations. Here, I think is her best capsulization of it all:
The whole thing, meanwhile, looks like a play for time. In that respect, it’s probably related to what’s going on with the John Durham investigation, and what is about to emerge regarding many of the same Obamagate principals who have a vested interest in the outcome of Michael Flynn’s case.