Top Senators Blast Rogue Judge’s Refusal to Dismiss Flynn Case
The actions of the rogue federal judge in the Michael Flynn criminal case are an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power that represent a “recipe for tyranny,” seven top senators, including the Senate Majority leader, told a federal court on Monday. In an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) blasted the refusal of Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to grant the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss charges against Flynn. Sens. Mike Braun (R-Indiana), Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Rick Scott (R-Florida), and Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) also signed the brief.
Sullivan’s actions violate the Constitution’s clear separation of powers on which branch of government may prosecute American citizens, the senators assert, citing the U.S. Constitution, quotes from Founding Fathers, and longstanding federal court precedent. According to the U.S. Constitution, the Executive Branch that houses the Department of Justice has the exclusive discretion to begin and to end a prosecution while the Judiciary has the power to decide cases or controversies. Just as the Executive cannot direct the Judiciary’s rulings, the Judiciary cannot direct the Executive’s prosecutorial decisions, the senators write.
No less than the former Chief Justice John Marshall described prosecutorial discretion as “‘an indubitable and a Constitutional power’ which permitted [the President] alone to determine . . . when to pursue and when to forego prosecutions,” the senators note, quoting the former chief justice from his time as a congressman. The senators reminded the court that Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 78 that “while the Executive ‘holds the sword of the community,’ the Judiciary ‘can take no active resolution whatever’ because it has ‘neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment.’” They quote James Madison in Federalist No. 47 that “[a]lthough individual liberty has ‘nothing to fear from the judiciary alone,’ it has ‘everything to fear’ from the union of the judicial and executive powers—which is a recipe for ‘tyranny.’” (Read more from “Top Senators Blast Rogue Judge’s Refusal to Dismiss Flynn Case” HERE)
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