No - it's the same judge who appointed a highly respected retired Federal Judge to determine whether the dismissal of charges against Flynn was warranted and in the best interests of the United States and justice.
That occurred after the former AG - who himself has had his own recent
epiphany about Orange Man's actions on January 6th
- corruptly intervened in the case to drop the charges - where Flynn had already pled guilty and had a change of heart and wanted to change his plea, after the illustrious MAGA lawyer, Sidney Powell (
) - who has now disgraced herself thoroughly and is facing sanctions and potential disbarment - intervened on Trump's behalf and sought to communicate directly with the AG ... something which is both highly unusual and questionable ethically.
Ultimately that appointed judge had some thoughts about how the whole process had played out:
Appointed outside judge in Flynn case blasts Justice Department for 'gross abuse' of power
Which sounds about right for the DOJ under Trump and his toady Barr.
We don't know whether there were any threats conveyed by Sidney to the AG, or whether Barr just went along with it, in service of his own extremist political project.
What we do know however is that someone in the Trump/Barr DOJ altered FBI documents in furtherance of justifying the dismissal of charges.
When the matter of whether to allow Flynn to withdraw his plea was appealed, a three judge panel on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled against Judge Sullivan, 2-1 ... despite the fact the matter was currently under consideration by a lower court - which hadn't yet ruled on the matter itself ...
Such an intervention is highly unusual, and was so noted by dissenting Judge Robert Wilkins:
The two judges ruling against Judge Sullivan ?
Both Republicans, with Trump-appointed extremist judge/political hack Neomi Rao authoring the opinion for the majority. The second judge of that pair, Thomas Beall Griffith, has since retired (possibly to avoid further scrutiny for unethical conduct, like Trump's sister did) and Uncle Joe has appointed to him to the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he'll hopefully be a good little boy and stay out of further trouble.
Following that ruling, Judge Sullivan requested a hearing of the matter before the full Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, en banc.
On rehearing, the full court ruled 8 to 2 against Flynn's and DOJ's request to dismiss:
Appeals court denies Michael Flynn and Justice Department's effort to end his case
They also refused to reassign the case to a judge other than Sullivan and upheld Sullivan’s appointment of a former judge to counter the Justice Department’s attempt to drop the case.
At that point, Trump was left with no option but to (corruptly) pardon Flynn, to save his own bacon, which of course he did on November 25, 2020.
So far that ploy is holding up ... but it's hard to say how long that will last, given Flynn's involvement in the events of January 6th.
Thanks for the opportunity that allowed covering the factual history of the case (as opposed to some politically-motivated derp someone might post), and to point out the corrupt actions of the Trump DOJ and at least one of the judges he appointed.
themselves if they had to deal with a cop from the late 1950s.....because there was no miranda rights back then nor any form of nice cop.cops back then could just beat you till you puked or shot you.....
