The U.S. District Court judge who oversaw the criminal case of President Donald Trump�s former national security adviser Michael Flynn has requested a full appeals court review after a three-judge panel ordered him to dismiss it.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan made the highly unusual the request Thursday. A three-judge panel last month ordered Sullivan to dismiss the case against Flynn, following the Justice Department�s extraordinary decision to drop the prosecution.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said in a 2-1 ruling that the Justice Department�s decision to abandon the case against Flynn settled the matter, even though Flynn had pleaded guilty as part of special counsel Robert Mueller�s Russia investigation to lying to the FBI.

The request signals Sullivan�s dissatisfaction with the ruling. If granted, it would prolong the court fight over Flynn�s fate and represent yet another dramatic development in a case that has taken unexpected twists and turns over the last year and turned Flynn into something of a cause celebre for President Donald Trump and his supporters.

Sullivan had declined to immediately dismiss the case, seeking instead to evaluate on his own the department�s request. He appointed a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Department�s position and to consider whether Flynn could be held in criminal contempt for perjury. He had set a July 16 hearing to formally hear the request to dismiss the case.

Sullivan said in the court papers Thursday that the appellate decision �in fact marks a dramatic break from precedent that threatens the orderly administration of justice.�

He said the ruling prevented the court from doing its job.

�The panel�s decision threatens to turn ordinary judicial process upside down,� he wrote. �It is the district court�s job to consider and rule on pending motions, even ones that seem straightforward.�

He requested the full appeals court to re-hear the case. If the court agrees, the 11 fulltime judges in the D.C. circuit would listen to arguments, instead of just three, the norm for most cases.

�Judicial decisions are supposed to be based on the record before the court, not speculation about what the future may hold,� the court papers said.

Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump nominee who was joined by Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, wrote in the opinion dismissing the case that Sullivan had overstepped by second-guessing the Justice Department�s decision. This case, she wrote, �is not the unusual case where a more searching inquiry is justified.�

(AP)