DOJ lawyer suggests possibility that undisclosed info factored into Flynn dismissal request

As the ongoing legal saga surrounding former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn continued on Tuesday, a Justice Department lawyer suggested that the DOJ's move to dismiss the case could have had rationales not laid out in the government's motion.

"Yes, I just wanted to make clear that it may be possible that the attorney general had before him information that he was not able to share with the court, and so what we put in front of the court were the reasons that we could, but it may not be the whole picture available to the executive branch," acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

"We gave three reasons," Wall said. "One of them was that the interests of justice were no longer served in the attorney general's judgment by the prosecution. The attorney general made that decision or that judgment on the basis of lots of information. Some of it is public and fleshed out in the motion. Some of it is not.” 

Ten of the court's judges listened to arguments on Tuesday after three judges on that court had ruled 2-1 in June that Sullivan should dismiss the Flynn case.. 

Flynn's attorney Sidney Powell is working to have the case against her client dismissed. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan has not yet dismissed the case against Flynn even though the Department of Justice has requested the dismissal.

The issue at hand on Tuesday concerned "whether Flynn's attorney is entitled to leapfrog Sullivan and get an order from the appeals court forcing him to dismiss the prosecution before Sullivan himself has had the chance to rule," according to the Associated Press.

"A ruling against Flynn would not undo his guilty plea or end the case but simply return it to Sullivan for a hearing on the government's request to dismiss," the outlet explained.