A win for Trump

Greetings, QuickTake readers. In this edition: AOC wins big, Bayer pays up, and space tourism is closer than you think.

A federal appeals court ordered a judge to immediately dismiss the criminal case against Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

"He was persecuted," Trump said of Flynn, adding unprompted that "the Obama administration spied on the campaign."

The 2-1 ruling is a win for Trump, who has repeatedly slammed the case against Flynn as part of a broader conspiracy by Democrats to undermine him and his administration. Attorney General William Barr reversed course on its prosecution of Flynn last month, requesting the court drop the case because Flynn’s false statements to two federal agents weren’t “material” to their investigation and they set him up to lie as part of a biased agenda.

In his dissent, Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, said the decision is a “drastic and extraordinary remedy” that he believed had never happened before.