In 1973,Sullivan joined the law firm of Houston &Gardner,co-founded by Charles Hamilton Houston,who had expanded Howard University Law School as its dean,and led litigation for the NAACP to overturn racially restrictive laws. Sullivan became a partner and was actively engaged in the general practice of law with that firm.
In August 1980,his partner,William C. Gardner,was appointed as an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Sullivan was a name partner in the successor firm of Houston,Sullivan &Gardner. He also taught as an adjunct professor at the Howard University School of Law and has served as a member of the visiting faculty at Harvard Law School's Trial Advocacy Workshop.
Sullivan presided over the 2008 trial of U.S. SenatorTed Stevens,who was convicted of seven felony ethics violations in October. During the trial,the judge refused requests by the defense for a mistrial to be declared,after information was revealed that the prosecution had withheld exculpatory Brady material.[8][9] Eight days after the guilty verdict,Stevens narrowly lost his reelection bid.[10] As more evidence of prosecutorial misconduct became known in early 2009,Judge Sullivan held four prosecutors in civil contempt of court.[11] On April 1,2009,following a Justice Department probe that found additional evidence of prosecutorial misconduct,the Department of Justice recommended that Stevens' conviction be dismissed.[12] On April 7,2009,Sullivan set aside the conviction and appointed a lawyer to investigate the prosecution team for criminal contempt.[13] Subsequently,one of the four prosecutors held in contempt committed suicide.[14] Ultimately,Sullivan dismissed the civil contempt charges,[15] and no additional charges were brought against the three surviving prosecutors.[16]
In 2014,Sullivan was presiding over a case,Judicial Watch v. IRS,[17] related to an ongoing investigation into the 2013 IRS controversy. There was a fruitless attempt to determine where the deleted emails of former IRS employee Lois Lerner had gone,what damage to her computer hard drive occurred,and what steps the IRS had taken to recover the information contained in the emails and on the hard drive.[18][19]
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),a woman and her child fled domestic abuse in El Salvador to seek asylum in the U.S. However,the mother was removed from her detention facility and likely put on a plane on August 9,2018,despite Justice Department promises that she and others would not be deported before the judge could rule on their cases. Sullivan demanded,"Turn that plane around." He threatened to hold those responsible for the removal in contempt of court,starting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions,if the situation was not rectified. A Department of Homeland Security official stated,"We are complying with the court's requests...the plaintiffs will not disembark and will be promptly returned to the United States."[21]
The case of United States of America v. Michael T. Flynn,the former national security adviser to Donald Trump,was randomly assigned to District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras.[28] On December 1,2017,Flynn and special counsel Robert Mueller agreed to a plea bargain in the D.C. court. In the plea bargain,Flynn admitted to one count of lying to the FBI and said he was cooperating with the Mueller investigation. [29][30] On December 7,Contreras recused himself from the case,[31] which was randomly reassigned to Sullivan.[32] After questioning Flynn about his reasons for pleading guilty,Sullivan accepted Flynn's guilty plea.[33] Sullivan deferred sentencing Flynn several times because prosecutors indicated he was still cooperating with their investigation.[34][35][36][37][38][39]
In June 2019 Flynn changed attorneys,retaining controversial Texas attorney Sidney Powell to head his legal team,[40][41] and began to assert that investigators and prosecutors had acted improperly.[41] On December 16,2019,Sullivan rejected Flynn's claims of entrapment by the FBI and malfeasance by prosecutors,and set sentencing for January 28,2020.[42] On January 14,2020,Flynn filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea "because of the government's bad faith,vindictiveness,and breach of the plea agreement."[43] On January 16,Sullivan postponed Flynn's sentencing date to February 27.[44]
On May 7,2020,the Department of Justice (DOJ) said it would move to drop all charges against Flynn.[45] It was left to Sullivan to determine whether to dismiss the charges and,if so,whether to do it "with prejudice" to prevent a retrial.[46] On May 11,2020,former federal judge and prosecutor John Gleeson co-authored with other former law enforcement officials an op-ed encouraging Judge Sullivan to scrutinize the DOJ's motion.[47] On May 12,Sullivan announced that he would place a hold on the DOJ's move to drop charges against Flynn,and would consider a hearing involving "friend of the court" (amicus curiae) input from outside parties with interests and perspectives.[48] On May 13,Sullivan appointed Gleeson as amicus to formally oppose the DOJ's attempt to drop charges,and to look into whether Flynn had committed perjury when he twice told the court under oath that he was guilty.[47] Sullivan said "at the appropriate time" he would set a schedule for outside parties to argue against the DOJ's claims as it moves to drop the charges.[48]
On May 19,Flynn's post-conviction attorney Powell filed a writ of mandamus appeal with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals,asking that Sullivan be ordered to drop the charges,challenging his decision to appoint Gleeson,and asking that he be removed from the case.[49][50] On May 21,citing US v Fokker Servs,BV,818 F.3d 733 (DC Cir 2016),the D.C. Circuit ordered Sullivan to respond to the writ of mandamus by June 1,2020,and invited the government to respond within the same 10-day period.[51] On June 1,as part of his response,[52][53][54] Sullivan argued that the Fokker decision does not apply because it did not consider a situation where the defendant pleaded guilty twice and the prosecutor changed course;Sullivan moved to dismiss.[54] Oral arguments before a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel were held on June 12,2020.[55] Sullivan was next due to hear the case on July 16,2020.[56]
On June 24,2020,in a 2-1 decision,the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel granted Flynn's petition for a writ of mandamus,ordering Judge Sullivan to dismiss the case. "In this case,the district court's actions will result in specific harms to the exercise of the Executive Branch's exclusive prosecutorial power. The contemplated proceedings would likely require the Executive to reveal the internal deliberative process behind its exercise of prosecutorial discretion,interfering with the Article II charging authority." The decision also vacated Judge Sullivan's amicus appointment on mootness grounds.[57] In response to the higher court ruling,Judge Sullivan issued an order canceling the July 16 hearing date but did not address the DOJ's motion further. Judge Sullivan's options were either to request the full appellate court to review the case or to grant the DOJ's motion to dismiss the charges in accordance with the writ of mandamus.[58]
On July 9,Judge Sullivan asked the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the June 24 decision,saying the panel's decision represented a "dramatic break from precedent".[59] On July 20,2020,Flynn filed his response to Judge Sullivan's request for the full court to review the panel decision to order the criminal charges dismissed.[60] By Order dated July 30,2020,the full court granted Judge Sullivan's request and scheduled oral argument for August 11,2020.[61] In addition to vacating the June 24,2020 panel decision,the Order directs all parties to be prepared to "address whether there are 'no other adequate means to attain the relief' desired" (citation omitted).[61] On August 11,the full appeals court heard arguments from the DOJ and from Flynn's attorney.[62] On August 31,the appeals court declined to order dismissal of Flynn's prosecution.[63] In an en banc hearing,eight of the D.C. Circuit judges ruled in favor of allowing Sullivan to adjudicate the case. Only the two judges who ruled in favor of Flynn in June 2020,appointed by Presidents George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump ruled against the decision. In their dissent,they reversed their earlier position that the case should not be taken from Sullivan and assigned to another judge.[64]
On November 25,2020,Trump issued Flynn a full presidential pardon.[65] On December 8,2020,Judge Sullivan dismissed the case as moot because of the presidential pardon. In his 43-page opinion he commented that the pardon was "extraordinarily broad",noted that such a pardon does not render the recipient "innocent",and pointed out that acceptance of a pardon implies an admission of guilt.[66]
A man who left a graphic death threat on Sullivan's voicemail during the Flynn proceeding was sentenced in July 2021 to 18 months in prison.[67]
Post Office
On October 28,2020,Sullivan ordered USPS to lift limits on extra trips and overtime leading up to Election Day. He also ordered the Postal Service to update him on the number of trips occurring each day at a national,regional,and local level.[68] On November 3,Sullivan ordered the USPS to "sweep its facilities" in crucial swing states by 3 p.m. that day. The USPS failed to meet the deadline.[69] After the USPS failure to comply with the court-ordered ballot sweep,Sullivan ordered Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to appear in court.[70] Sullivan has also ordered the Postal Service to sweep their facilities for ballots twice a day in states with extended deadlines. At a post-election hearing in early November,Sullivan said that DeJoy "is either going to have to be deposed or appear before me and testify under oath about why some measures were not taken."[71]
Title 42
On November 15,2022,Sullivan ruled that Title 42 expulsion,a tool used by presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden to forbid asylum seekers from remaining in the United States was a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act,noting that the Title was an "arbitrary and capricious" violation of the Act. The ruling required the United States government to process all asylum seekers under immigrant law as previous to Title 42's implementation,and Sullivan specifically called out the CDC for intentionally ignoring the negative effects that Title 42 would bring about,as well as failing to allow migrants to reside with legal US residents. The ruling was celebrated by the ACLU,the plaintiff in the case.[72]
Royce Charles Lamberth is a senior judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia,who formerly served as its chief judge. Since 2015,he has sat as a visiting judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio.
Beth Ann Wilkinson is an American lawyer based in Washington,D.C. She is a founding partner of Wilkinson Stekloff,a specialty trial and litigation law firm. Formerly,she was a partner in the Paul,Weiss,Rifkind,Wharton &Garrison law firm,where she worked in their Washington,D.C. office focusing on white collar criminal defense. Wilkinson began her legal career as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps,and she has also served as an Assistant United States Attorney in New York City.
Karen LeCraft Henderson is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 1990 as a U.S. circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She previously was a U.S. district judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina from 1986 to 1990.
Michael Thomas Flynn is a retired United States Army lieutenant general who was the 24th U.S. national security advisor for the first 22 days of the first Trump administration. He resigned in light of reports that he had lied regarding conversations with Russian ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak. Flynn's military career included a key role in shaping U.S. counterterrorism strategy and dismantling insurgent networks in the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars,and he was given numerous combat arms,conventional,and special operations senior intelligence assignments. He became the 18th director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in July 2012 until his forced retirement from the military in August 2014. During his tenure he gave a lecture on leadership at the Moscow headquarters of the Russian military intelligence directorate GRU,the first American official to be admitted entry to the headquarters.
Amy Sauber Berman Jackson is an American attorney and jurist serving as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Rudolph Contreras is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He served as Presiding Judge on the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court from 2021 to 2023.
Neomi Jehangir Rao is an American jurist and legal scholar serving since 2019 as a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She was appointed by President Donald Trump,having served in the Trump Administration from 2017 to 2019 as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. She was previously a professor of law at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School.
D.C. and Maryland v. Trump was a lawsuit filed on June 12,2017,in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. The plaintiffs,the U.S. state of Maryland and the District of Columbia,alleged that the defendant,President Donald Trump,had violated the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution by accepting gifts from foreign governments. The lawsuit was filed by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh.
On August 25,2017,President Donald Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio for criminal contempt of court,a misdemeanor. Arpaio had been convicted of the crime two months earlier for disobeying a federal judge's order to stop racial profiling in detaining "individuals suspected of being in the U.S. illegally". The pardon covered Arpaio's conviction and "any other offenses under Chapter 21 of Title 18,United States Code that might arise,or be charged,in connection with Melendres v. Arpaio." The official White House statement announcing the grant of clemency described Arpaio as a "worthy candidate" having served the nation for more than fifty years "protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration."
This is a timeline of events in the first half of 2019 related to investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections,both before and after July 2016,until November 8,2016,the transition,the first and second halves of 2017,the first and second halves of 2018,and followed by the second half of 2019,2020,and 2021.
The Special Counsel investigation was a United States law enforcement and counterintelligence investigation of the Russian government's efforts to interfere in United States politics and any possible involvement by members of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. It was primarily focused on the 2016 presidential election.
This is a timeline of major events in second half of 2018 related to the investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8,and the transition,the first and second halves of 2017,and the first half of 2018,but precedes that of the first and second halves of 2019,2020,and 2021. These events are related to,but distinct from,Russian interference in the 2018 United States elections.
Timothy Shea is an American attorney and prosecutor who served as acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration from 2020 to 2021. Previously,he was interim United States attorney for the District of Columbia,the country's largest U.S. attorney's office;a senior counselor to U.S. Attorney General William Barr at the Department of Justice;a lobbyist;and private corporate lawyer.
Aileen Mercedes Cannon is a Colombian-born American lawyer serving since 2020 as a United States federal judge in the District Court for the Southern District of Florida. President Donald Trump nominated and appointed Cannon to the federal bench after confirmation by the US Senate in November 2020. Cannon worked for the corporate law firm Gibson Dunn from 2009 to 2012 and was a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of Florida from 2013 to 2020.
This is a timeline of events from 2020 to 2022 related to investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections,both before and after July 2016,until November 8,2016,election day,the transition,the first and second halves of 2017,the first and second halves of 2018,and the first and second halves of 2019.
Michael Rafi Sherwin is an attorney who served as the acting United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 2020 to 2021. He was appointed by Attorney General William Barr during the Trump administration. He is partner at the law firm Kobre &Kim where he handles international government investigations.
United States v. Flynn was a criminal case in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia which was dismissed without any convictions in December 2020 following a presidential pardon. Michael Flynn,a retired lieutenant general in the United States Armed Forces,had accepted President-elect Donald Trump's offer for the position of National Security Advisor in 2016 and then briefly served as National Security Advisor. He pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Flynn's alleged false statements involve conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak when Flynn was incoming National Security Advisor to President-elect Trump,and Flynn agreed to cooperate with the Special Counsel investigation as part of a plea deal.
Sidney Katherine Powell is an American attorney,former federal prosecutor,and conspiracy theorist who attempted to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election. In August 2023,she was indicted along with Donald Trump and eighteen others in the Georgia election case for their efforts to subvert the election outcome in Georgia and other key states lost by Trump. In October 2023,she pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties. She was sentenced to six years of probation and agreed to testify against the other defendants.
Corruptly obstructing,influencing,or impeding an official proceeding is a felony under U.S. federal law. It was enacted as part of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 in reaction to the Enron scandal,and closed a legal loophole on who could be charged with evidence tampering by defining the new crime very broadly.
Stanley Edmund Woodward Jr. is an American attorney with Brand Woodward Law. His clients have included those subpoenaed or convicted for the January 6 United States Capitol attack,and aides to Donald Trump.
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