Forum: For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law

Michael Flynn appears to be off the hook finally.

An appeals court forced a trial judge to dismiss the government’s case against him after the government changed its mind. What we are seeing, I think, is a harbinger of things to come. What we are seeing is a demonstration of that old saying familiar to Latin American dictators of yore: For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law.

Flynn was facing prosecution after being charged in connection with the Robert Mueller investigation into Russian interference. Flynn’s case was long a thorn in the president’s side. Eventually, Bill Barr, the US Attorney General, decided against going to trial, a move so highly usual it was widely regarded as a sop to Donald Trump.

The trial judge, Emmet Sullivan, said hold your horses. He hired another judge to review Flynn’s case independently. Meanwhile, the case was pending. The Justice Department appealed to a higher court featuring the recently confirmed federal Judge Neomi Rao, who owes her new job to the president. Rao said Sullivan had overstepped his bounds, but the appeals court’s dissenting judge said he did no such thing.

I’m no lawyer but I’m also no fool. The president fired James Comey over Flynn. Bill Barr was ready to move. The judge said wait a minute. Barr said no, I won’t wait, and got a friendly judge to help clear Flynn before the case got attention. That’s pretty much a textbook example of the fix being in, and good illustration, though a small one, of the potential for corruption among the 200 federal judges confirmed under Trump.

We are seeing the makings of a judicial system in which equal protection is a ruse, Republican friends get what they want, and Republican enemies get the law. Our problems are much deeper than Trump, yet no one really knows what to do.

As always, I’d like to hear your thoughts. Let me know in the comments below.

—John Stoehr