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Today in court: Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was one of the Mueller probe's early cooperators, is looking for ways out of his guilty plea buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
Note the distinction Flynn's lawyer drew between a request to withdraw Flynn's guilty plea and trying to get the case dismissed because of prosecutorial misconduct. Per today's hearing, Flynn seemed to be leaning towards the latter approach buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
A defendant can attempt to withdraw a guilty plea before sentencing — a judge has to find that the defendant put forward a "fair and just" reason for doing so. That involves a whole balancing test, here's a law review article explaining this: scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewconten… 
Judges also have the power to dismiss charges or impose other sanctions if they find prosecutors committed misconduct. As the judge in Flynn's case noted today, regardless of any plea deal, prosecutors have a freestanding obligation to follow the rules buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
The judge in Flynn's case, Judge Emmet Sullivan, has been a leading voice on issues re: prosecutors' obligation to turn over favorable info to the defense. He presided over the botched prosecution of the late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, and Flynn's lawyers have been citing that case
Here's a 2014 story on this. If you can't open it b/c you don't have Lexis, you can still read the dek: "U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, in his own words, doesn't play around when it comes to prosecutors' obligation to turn over favorable evidence..." law.com/nationallawjou…
Whether any of this actually helps Flynn get his case tossed out remains to be seen. But it's certainly relevant that this is an issue the judge has experience with and holds very strong opinions about, even just in understanding how the lawyers are framing their arguments
Also important to note that it's very rare to see defendants win in either of these potential scenarios (successfully withdrawing a guilty plea or convincing a judge to toss the case for govt misconduct) — the bar that Flynn would have to clear is quite high
To conclude: We don't know for sure what exactly Flynn is going to do, but in court today we got confirmation that his legal team is exploring options to try to get him out of his guilty plea buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
