Flynn decision cheered by Trump and the right, as critics decry it as an attack on the rule of law

The Justice Department’s decision to drop its prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Thursday was greeted as a triumph by President Trump and his allies, who have argued for years that Flynn was set up — but with dire alarm by Trump’s opponents, who saw the move as an attack on the rule of law.

The extreme division mirrored three years of partisan combat over how the FBI handled Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, an investigation that shadowed much of Trump’s time in office.

And the circumstances of the development — delivered by a loyalist attorney general after a key prosecutor withdrew from a case in which Flynn had previously acknowledged guilt on multiple occasions — appeared only to harden positions. Continue reading.