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Will Michael Flynn Get Away With It?

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.56K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2020

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The criminal case against former Trump adviser Michael Flynn has been full of plot-twists. But the biggest about-face came last week, when the Department of Justice moved to drop the case entirely. Lawyers who had worked on the investigation registered their disgust by refusing to sign the motion. U.S. Attorney General William Barr says he hopes history will look kindly on his decision. Critics say the move undermines any future attempt to hold the Trump administration accountable.

Guest: Dahlia Lithwick, legal correspondent for Slate and host of the podcast Amicus

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Transcript

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0:00.0

So, Dahlia, have you read this latest letter from the Department of Justice alumni group?

0:10.7

Yes, the one that 2,000 former DOJ officials have signed.

0:16.9

Yeah, they sound exhausted to me.

0:21.6

If I were one of these former prosecutors, I'd be exhausted too.

0:26.6

Over the last year, they have tried to sound the alarm again and again about the rule of law under the Trump administration,

0:33.6

especially under Attorney General William Barr.

0:36.6

They've written letters to protest the way the DOJ handled the Mueller report,

0:41.7

to protest the reduced sentencing recommendation of Trump friend Roger Stone.

0:47.4

And now, they're talking about the case against former Trump advisor Michael Flynn,

0:52.5

which the DOJ decided to suddenly drop cold turkey

0:56.8

last week. I think that they simply feel as though like a brisk thwack across the nose is

1:04.6

going to make Barr say like, wait, I'm violating all norms. And when he doubles down and

1:09.7

doubles down again, they're like, well, what do we do now? I know another strongly worded letters. Yeah, at some point, I'm waiting for them to realize they're like not training a Labrador. You know, it's funny, though, I will say, like after I posted my piece about this, I had a bunch of people who actually signed the letter say to me, what do you want us to do? And I had sort of said in my piece, like, chain yourself to the building.

1:30.2

Like, the truth is, I don't know what you do.

1:36.6

Some prosecutors are making their opinions known not by speaking up, but by refusing to speak at all.

1:44.0

When the Department of Justice decided to drop this case against Michael Flynn last week,

1:48.5

even though Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents, the move was notable for a lot of reasons.

1:55.4

But one of them was the absence of the lawyers who had spent years working the case.

2:01.2

They refused to sign the paperwork.

2:03.1

I mean, these are, I think in lawyers speak, they're called noisy withdrawals, right?

2:08.3

It means that they're sliding away, they're ghosting into the night.

2:11.4

It's perfectly clear what they're telegraphing.

...

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