What the heck is going on in the Flynn case.  The appeals court told all sides to be prepared to address removing the judge from the case.  A three judge panel had earlier told the Judge to drop the case.  But judge Sullivan wanted the entire court panel to evaluate.  They agreed to (a hearing to be held Tuesday Aug 11 (tomorrow)) but then requested all sides weigh in on removing the judge completely.  
.
It's all very confusing.  If they had just rejected the appeal, the three judge decision would stand and Sullivan would have to dismiss the case.  End of story.  Why would they accept the appeal and then throw the judge off the case so another judge could dismiss the case.  
.
I really don't know how this case will come out.  Mixed signals.

to the mandamus motion and the petition for full court review, and has taken a lot of personal criticism in the pro-Trump press a/k/a Fox News - his impartiality might reasonably be questioned if the D.C. Circuit denies the  motion to order Judge Sullivan to immediately grant the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the indictment. Therefore Judge Sullivan should disqualify himself.  

So the DC Circuit is signaling ( I hope) that of course they will overturn the panel, deny mandamus,  and order the presiding judge to hold a hearing on the motion to dismiss the Flynn indictment.  But they will assign a new judge to hold this hearing, decide whether to grant the motion to dismiss, and if denied, to ultimately sentence Flynn. Probably the fair result also give the judge's statements about the case.

 
So expect Flynn to “lose” on the merits -no immediate dismissal- but “win” on getting a new judge.

I caught a bit of live blogging but it was a four hour hearing so a lot went on.  One gist was they really hate mandamus except under extreme cases because they don't want everybody filing mandamus which would bog down the appeals court.  
.
It's still a mystery what they expect to happen if Sullivan essentially becomes the prosecutor of the case, since the Feds have no interest in doing so.  Judge, prosecutor and jury all rolled into one man.  Very efficient.

Observers guess that there are enough votes to send the case back to Sullivan -- with the expectation he will dismiss the case as the DOJ requested.  

Now we are back in the wait and see mode.

be impeached.   You have to look at a lot of cases to find a judge as blatantly biased as this guy.