Republican says Flynn judge may have ‘conflict of interest’ after hiring personal attorney

A Republican congressman said he found it peculiar that the judge overseeing Michael Flynn’s case hired a prominent lawyer as an appeals court reviews his decision not to dismiss the case against President Trump’s former national security adviser immediately.

Rep. Doug Collins, a Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee who is now vying for a Senate seat in Georgia, said U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan’s actions are “unprecedented.”

"He's wanting to play every position. He wants to play the defense attorney, the prosecutor. He wants to play the judge. He wants to bring in his own hearings here. This is something that's very concerning," Collins told Fox News on Sunday. "It's no shock to me that he finally had to go get his own outside counsel because he's just operating in areas right here that, frankly, he needs to explain."

“I think we’re delving into areas here where the question is becoming, "Is it a conflict of interest?" You have a judge who has implicated himself in a case now in which he is still sitting as the final arbiter of what Gen. Flynn’s, he's saying the decision is,” he said. “When you look at it from that perspective, you have a judge who is operating outside, frankly, the parameters of a normal judge in this kind of case.”

Sullivan retained Beth Wilkinson to help him write a legal argument defending his authority over the case. Instead of dismissing the case against Flynn, as the Justice Department has asked, Sullivan appointed a retired judge to argue against the dismissal and consider whether Flynn committed perjury.

Flynn’s legal team challenged Sullivan’s decision by going to the appeals court, which gave Sullivan a deadline to explain his rationale by Monday.