A federal judge in Washington pushed back Thursday against an appeals court decision ordering the immediate dismissal of the Michael Flynn prosecution, arguing that he should be allowed to proceed with a review of the Justice Department’s extraordinary retreat from the case against the former Trump national security adviser.

Last month, a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District of Columbia to dismiss the case at the Justice Department’s request, despite Flynn’s past admissions that he lied to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the U.S.