Uh Oh, Michael Flynn, Deep State Might Still GONNA GITCHA

Yes, this is still dragging on.

Well darnit. Michael Flynn might still be tangled in the jaws of the Deep State, poor guy. What's a man who's held a security clearance for decades and yet somehow did not know it was bad to lie to the FBI about his underhanded secret dealings with the Russians gotta do to get a break around here?

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that they'd sure all like to hear why the hell Bill Barr wants to drop charges against Michael Flynn, who was convicted of lying to the FBI about his secret dealings with the Russians, who pleaded guilty to that TWICE, and who also pleaded to a bunch of other literal actual foreign agent crimes as part of his cooperation agreement.

Bill Barr's Department of Justice had moved to drop charges against Flynn after Jeffrey Jensen, Barr's handpicked goon US attorney from Missouri, looked at the case and decided Flynn WUZ FRAAAAAAAMED or something. Barr also unbelievably contends that all questions about Trump and Russia had really been resolved by the FBI at that point — the first two weeks of Trump's presidency — and that this therefore was not an open matter appropriate for the FBI to be investigating. Therefore, no crime, no time!

District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan was not amused by any of that, and moved to consider the merits of the government's motion to dismiss the charges, appointing an outside judge to take a look-see at just how much bullshit Barr's Department of Justice was spewing. Flynn's team whined to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and got SOFA KING LUCKY when they drew a three-judge panel that had two idiots on it, one of them being Trump judge Neomi Rao, the biggest idiot of them all.

 Rao ruled that actually, it is no fair to ever suggest that Barr's Department of Justice might not be acting on the up-and-up and that it was totally above Judge Sullivan's pay grade to even ask the question of whether Barr's Department of Justice might be full of shit, and ordered Judge Sullivan to dismiss the charges.

Again, this is after the FBI caught Flynn red-handed, he pleaded guilty TWICE in a case brought by that very same DOJ, and after the sentencing phase started. (At which point Flynn suddenly had a change of heart,   blew up his plea deal,   hired batshit Fox News lawyer Sidney Powell, attempted to withdraw his guilty plea, and started crying about how he WUZ FRAAAAAAAAMED.)

At that point, we knew it would probably be heard en banc , which is a fancy law way of saying heard by all the judges. And that is what happened today. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals said yes, we'd all like to hear this bullshit. Unspoken in the court's short order was the obvious elephant in the room, which is that Neomi Rao is a big dumbass.

As Wonkette lawyer Liz noted when Neomi Rao wrote her very dumb and very bad ruling, the full appeals court has seven liberals and five conservatives, so this stage of the game might not go quite so well for Flynn and his batshit lawyer.

Of course, he will probably still ultimately get off, because Donald Trump prizes Flynn's loyalty and Bill Barr is Donald Trump's sworn protector. So if Flynn's charges somehow remain and if Flynn is somehow still sentenced for crimes he already pleaded guilty to TWICE, Trump will obviously pardon Flynn or commute his sentence, at which point Bill Barr will look at Congress like "who me?" when they ask if maybe he should investigate Trump for brazenly using his presidential powers to protect his own loser ass.

Just like Barr did this week , regarding the Roger Stone commutation.

Everything is so fucking stupid, have an open thread.

Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter RIGHT HERE, DO IT RIGHT HERE! 

Wonkette is fully funded by readers like YOU. If you love Wonkette, WE NEED YOUR LOVE GIFTS TO KEEP US GOING.

 Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons .