The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has revived the case against Michael Flynn and will reconsider whether to dismiss his guilty plea.
In a Thursday order, the appeals court vacated a three-judge panel’s finding that Flynn’s case must be dismissed.
New arguments before the full court are scheduled for Aug. 11.
US District Judge Emmet Sullivan is resisting the Justice Department’s attempt to drop the case.
The case is highly charged politically. Democrats allege the Justice Department is seeking to drop the prosecution to please President Trump, who often bemoaned Flynn’s treatment by the FBI.
Flynn, who briefly served as Trump’s White House national security adviser, was fired in February 2017 and then pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about discussing sanctions and a UN vote in December 2016 with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Flynn says he did not intentionally lie and the Justice Department said in May it would drop the case, finding FBI agents including Peter Strzok had no valid basis to interview Flynn days into Trump’s presidency.
The Justice Department said it wanted to drop the case because of investigative misconduct.
Transcripts of the calls between Flynn and Kislyak were released in May, showing Flynn did discuss sanctions and the UN vote.
Republicans said the transcripts show “there was nothing improper” about the substance of the calls, which Flynn made with the knowledge of other Trump transition officials.
In pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, Flynn agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which ultimately found no evidence that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia.
Flynn also avoided charges for admittedly working as an unregistered agent of Turkey and making false statements to the Justice Department about that work.
Flynn business partner Bijan Rafiekian was convicted last year on those charges and faced up to 15 years in prison before his conviction was overturned. The Justice Department is moving to retry Rafiekian.