The Filing by Judge Sullivan With The Circuit Court Is A Joke.

I tweeted yesterday that I was going to try to resist the urge to blast out “hot takes” on the submission by Judge Sullivan in response to the Circuit Court’s Order connected to Gen. Flynn’s Petition for a Writ of Mandamus. I did post a few thoughts as I made my way through the document, and later I gave my “30,000 foot” view of the filing.

As I wrote earlier on Twitter, the submission filed by attorney Beth Wilkinson on behalf of Judge Sullivan seems to have not been interested in addressing the pointed question raised by the Court’s order, but instead would be more accurately characterized as the proverbial ranting of an old man telling the neighbor kids to “Get off my lawn!”

More than anything else, the submission seeks to retain what Judge Sullivan believes are the prerogatives of the District Court, which is to get the first crack at writing whatever it is he feels entitled to write about Gen. Flynn and the DOJ motion, and once he’s done the Circuit Court can grade his work. Until then, Judge Sullivan seems to be saying “Butt out!!”

I’m not going to cover the ground already well-worn by others and give you a full “briefing” on the arguments made by Wilkinson on Judge Sullivan’s behalf. I will refer to the DOJ brief filed several hours after Judge Sullivan’s submission where warranted, but I’m not going to take on an analysis of that brief here – that’s a separate task that will require some effort because that brief is a serious piece of legal analysis that simply sweeps the board of all the pieces Judge Sullivan and the left-wing Anti-Trump/Flynn pundits think are in play.

Instead, I’m going to simply go to some key points in the Sullivan filing – key because they are so outrageous and unsupported by authority – and point out the issues as I see them.

First – and this really surprised me – Wilkinson made a blatant mis-statement of fact on P.1 when she baldly claimed that Judge Sullivan had found the “false statements” made by Gen. Flynn to the FBI were “material.” I wrote a lengthy earlier article on this topic, and I encourage you to read it if you want a more comprehensive analysis.

Judge Emmet Sullivan Likely Committed Reversible Error In Taking The Guilty Plea of General Michael Flynn

While it is true that the words did pass Judge Sullivan’s lips during the December 18, 2018, hearing that began as a sentencing hearing and then became … something else, it’s also true that at the end of that hearing Judge Sullivan said the following (found at p. 50 of the transcript):

https://www.redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2020/06/02/846660/

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In a few places in the filing Wilkinson uses the term “plausible judicial question” as a basis to justify the inquiry that Judge Sullivan intends on pursuing.

I’m going to confess that I did not read every word of every case cited by her in the filing, and I’ll gladly append a note to this article if someone makes it necessary.

But I did not see the phrase “plausible judicial question” anywhere in any of the cases she cited that I did read, and I don’t see her having cited to any particular case where she says the existence of a “plausible judicial question” is the standard for a district court having the authority to do anything connected to what Judge Sullivan claims he wants to do.

In other words, she just made it up.

She made it up in the context of looking for a basis to overcome what Fokker Services says is a “presumption of regularity” that must be given to filings by the government that are within the normal course of the government’s work before the court. At P.27 she writes:

“The record before the district court raises at least a plausible question whether the central premise of Fokker’s deference to the government – the “presumption of regularity” that applies to prosecutorial decisions … could be overcome.”

While there is an internal citation to the Fokker case that I omitted, that citation isn’t support for the proposition that the Court must address “plausible questions” in order to rule on the motion. She cites no authority for that claim – she made it up.

The citation to Fokker is to support the proposition advance by her that “presumption of regularity” is the “central premise” behind “deference to the government.” Other than the fact that a “presumption of regularity” must be provided to DOJ’s decision, everything else she wrote about the existence of a “plausible judicial question” that might “overcome the presumption” is made up by her.

Finally, she rolls out the “hobby horse” of the anti-Flynn/Trump forces that “no line prosecutors signed the DOJ motion to dismiss” – without any suggestion as to why that should be deemed significant.

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State of Minnesota Files Civil Rights Charges Against Minneapolis Police Department

The Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) has formally filed a racial discrimination charge against the Minneapolis Police Department in connection to the May 25 killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man.

The state governmental body's release noted that the Minneapolis cops continued to kneel on the handcuffed 46-year-old and "did not respond to [Floyd's] calls for help."

"This incident, and others similar to it since at least January 1, 2010 and continuing to the present, require investigation into whether the respondent's training, policies, procedures, practices, including but not limited to use of force protocols and any corresponding implementation, amounts to unlawful race-based policing which deprives peoples of color, particularly Black community members, of their civil rights under the Minnesota Human Rights Act," MDHR Commissioner Rebecca Lucero said in the filing.

Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz promptly acknowledged the forthcoming investigation via social media and vowed that his administration "will use every tool at our disposal to deconstruct generations of systemic racism in Minnesota."

"Being black should not be a death sentence," Walz said in an accompanying address on the matter, as reported by journalist Ricardo Lopez.

The MDHR probe comes amid already existing local and federal investigations into Floyd's death, which has been ruled a homicide according to two separate autopsies.

Walz announced Sunday that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison would be assisting with the Hennepin County Attorney Office's investigation and prosecution of those deemed responsible for the killing.

The FBI is also conducting a federal civil rights investigation into the incident and has requested any relevant digital media from citizens.

https://sputniknews.com/us/202006021079501390-state-of-minnesota-files-civil-rights-charges-against-minneapolis-police-department/