COLUMBUS – Ohio Attorney General David Yost and 14 other Republican state attorneys general have filed a court brief supporting the Justice Department’s motion to drop its case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The group argued Monday that U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan should immediately grant the motion to dismiss all charges against Flynn. They say the federal judiciary doesn’t have the power to force prosecutors to continue to pursue a conviction.
“This extraordinary example of judicial activism is the antithesis of our Constitution and the separation of powers. Our founding fathers designed a system of government precisely to stop a branch of government from undertaking this type of overreach,” Yost said.
After the Justice Department decided not to pursue criminal charges against Flynn, Sullivan implied that it may order the prosecution to continue through a court-appointed prosecutor.
The brief, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C>, states that “the Court’s desire to assume the role of a prosecutor evinces a total lack of regard for the role that the separation of powers plays in our system.”
Flynn pleaded guilty in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. He admitted lying to the FBI about conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the presidential transition period.