Ending the Flynn False-Statement Case Was the Right Judgment

Judgments and rules are two different things. Rules are, or should be, clear bright lines that can produce yes-or-no answers. Judgments are more complicated than that. They need not be as standardless as Potter Stewart’s famous definition of pornography (“I know it when I see it”), but judgments typically involve a good deal more weighing and balancing of multiple factors, sometimes in ways that don’t reduce to a mathematical formula. The Justice Department’s decision to drop the Michael Flynn false-statement prosecution, three years after he pleaded guilty, might not pass...