Nearly two thousand former Justice Department officials on Monday urged a Washington judge to closely examine U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s move to drop the prosecution of Michael Flynn, the former Trump national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents in the Russia investigation.

In an open letter, the former Justice Department officials from past Republican and Democratic administrations condemned the recent maneuvering in Flynn’s case as a political favor for a friend of President Donald Trump and called on U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District of Columbia to consider rejecting the motion to dismiss the prosecution and “proceed with sentencing if appropriate.”