Michael Flynn could still face jail for perjury over his guilty plea as judge orders review of the case by former mafia prosecutor who said decision to drop the prosecution 'reeks of improper political influence'

The judge presiding over Michael Flynn´s criminal case appointed a retired jurist on Wednesday to evaluate whether the former Trump administration national security adviser should be held in criminal contempt over his guilty plea to perjury charges that have since been dropped by federal prosecutors.

The judge's order is the second signal in as many days registering his resistance to swiftly accepting the Justice Department´s motion to dismiss all charges against Flynn.

In his order, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan appointed former federal judge John Gleeson as an amicus curiae - or friend-of-the-court - and asked him to explore whether Sullivan should hold Flynn in 'criminal contempt for perjury.'

It comes as President Donald Trump blasted his political opponent Joe Biden over revelations that Biden had requested that Flynn's name be 'unmasked' in foreign intelligence reports, a procedure that allowed for warrant-less surveillance of the then incoming national security advisor during the presidential transition.  

Flynn pleaded guilty, as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, to lying to the FBI about conversations with the then-Russian ambassador to the United States during the presidential transition period.

As part of the plea, he had to admit in court, under oath, that he lied to the FBI and violated federal law. It is a crime to lie under oath in court.

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Flynn is seen arriving at a 2018 hearing. A judge has ordered a probe into whether he lied under oath when he pleaded guilty to perjury, after he later tried to withdraw the plea

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In his order, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan (left) appointed former federal judge John Gleeson (right) as an amicus curiae - or friend-of-the-court - and asked him to explore whether Sullivan should hold Flynn in 'criminal contempt for perjury.' 

It comes just days after Gleeson co-authored a Washington Post opinion column blasting the Justice Department for dropping the case against Flynn. 

'There has been nothing regular about the department's effort to dismiss the Flynn case. The record reeks of improper political influence,' the column read. 

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec declined to comment on Sullivan's order.

In January, Flynn filed court papers to withdraw his guilty plea, saying federal prosecutors had acted in 'bad faith' and broken their end of the bargain when they sought prison time for him.

Initially, prosecutors said Flynn was entitled to avoid prison time because he had cooperated extensively with the government, but the relationship with the retired Army lieutenant general grew increasingly contentious in the months before he withdrew his plea, particularly after he hired a new set of lawyers who raised misconduct allegations against the government.

But the Justice Department filed a motion last week to dismiss the case, saying that the FBI had insufficient basis to question Flynn in the first place and that statements he made during the interview were not material to the broader counterintelligence investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

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Flynn is seen at a campaign event for Trump in the 2016 election. He was quickly forced out as National Security Advisor due to the FBI investigation that led to his perjury prosecution 

Officials have said they sought to dismiss the case in the interest of justice, upon the recommendation of a U.S. attorney who had been appointed by Attorney General William Barr to review the handling of the Flynn investigation.

But Sullivan, who has to approve the motion, made clear Tuesday that he wouldn't immediately rule on the request and would let outside individuals and groups weigh in with their opinions in court documents.

Gleeson was a federal judge in New York for more than two decades. 

Before becoming a judge, he had been a federal prosecutor handling numerous high-profile cases, including the case against late Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. He´s been in private practice since 2016.

Geelson's appointment comes as President Donald Trump launched attacks at Joe Biden over the Obama administration's unusual move to 'unmask' Flynn's identity in foreign surveillance reports.

Names of Americans are routinely hidden, or minimized, in intelligence reports that describe routine, legal surveillance of foreign targets. U.S. officials must make a specific request if they want to know the person's identity, or 'unmask' them. 

Typically, the federal government requires a FISA warrant to surveil American citizens, and the use of unmasking to reveal American citizens captured in NSA intercepts is viewed by some as an end-run around tight restrictions on government surveillance powers.

On Wednesday, two Republican critics of the Russia investigation, Senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, disclosed a list of names of Obama administration officials who they say may have received Flynn's identity from intelligence reports in 2016 and 2017. 

Among the names is Trump's Democratic opponent, Biden, who was vice president when the Russia probe began. 

Trump hyped the disclosure of the list with Biden's name as a 'massive thing.' 

But the Biden campaign dismissed the revelation, with spokesman Andrew Bates saying it simply indicates 'the breadth and depth of concern across the American government' at the time about Flynn´s conversations with foreign representatives. 

None of the officials could have known beforehand that the unidentified person in the reports was Flynn, Bates said. 

The issue has been politically charged since early 2017, when it was revealed that Flynn had discussed sanctions during the presidential transition period with Russia's then-U.S. ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. 

Flynn later pleased guilty to lying to the FBI about the substance of those talks with Kislyak -- but later, written evidence emerged indicated that the agents sent to speak with Flynn hoped to intentionally trip him into lying.