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A third judge on the panel, Judge Robert L. Wilkins, a 2014 appointee of President Barack Obama, dissented. He said Judge Sullivan should be permitted to complete his review of the prosecutor’s actions and whether they are impermissible before deciding whether to grant the government’s motion to dismiss, citing the unusual circumstances of the Justice Department’s “abrupt reversal on the facts and the law” and the opacity of what happened.

In a dissenting opinion, he said his colleagues had made a series of mistakes that rendered a “dead letter” the portion of the rule of criminal procedure that says cases may only be dismissed with a judge’s approval, or “leave of the court” — at least when the defense and prosecution agree that a case should be dropped.

Instead, he argued, the law requires that Judge Sullivan be permitted to rule — and if Mr. Flynn and the Justice Department do not like what he decides, they can then file an appeal.

“The district court must be given a reasonable opportunity to consider and hold a hearing on the government’s request to ensure that it is not clearly contrary to the public interest,” he wrote. “I therefore dissent.”

Mr. Trump fired Mr. Flynn in early 2017 for lying to Vice President Pence and other colleagues about what he and the Russian ambassador discussed in December 2016. After realizing that Mr. Flynn was lying to his colleagues about the calls, the F.B.I. questioned him on Jan. 24, 2017, and he against falsely denied what they had discussed.

Mr. Flynn later struck a deal with prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to cooperate and plead guilty to one count of making a false statement to the F.B.I. agents. The deal would resolve his liability for that crime as well as for failing to register as a paid foreign agent of Turkey in 2016 and then signing forms in 2017 lying about the nature of that work.

But after Mr. Flynn twice pleaded guilty, he switched last year to a new defense lawyer — Ms. Powell — who began accusing the F.B.I. and prosecutors of misconduct. After Judge Sullivan rejected her accusations as unfounded late last year, Mr. Flynn sought to withdraw his guilty plea. Mr. Barr then assigned an outside prosecutor to scour Mr. Flynn’s case file, turning over internal documents showing that the F.B.I. was aggressive in decisions related to questioning him.