What’s the best move for President Trump in the fight for a just outcome in the case against General Michael Flynn? The question has become acute in the wake of Monday’s ruling by the full District of Columbia Circuit. It overruled an order that would have forced the district court to dismiss the case against the general. The circuit opened the door to an investigation of the Justice Department by the district court itself.

This puts Mr. Trump in an excruciating spot. Does he unsheathe the pardon to clear the general, letting the Devil take the hindmost? The pardon is recommended by one of the greatest constitutional tribunals in the country, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. Or does the Justice Department file in the Supreme Court an emergency petition for a summary reversal of the ruling against Flynn?

Our instinct — it’s only such — is that Mr. Trump would be wise first to try the Supreme Court. For there is an issue here that doesn’t involve Mr. Flynn’s culpability. Rather, it’s that the court is seeking to exercise power where — because prosecution and defense agree — a case and controversy is lacking. If courts were able to act without a dispute, they could exercise dictatorial power.

The D.C. Circuit has just brushed aside those objections over its own panel and ignored its own precedent. So why shouldn’t Attorney General Barr and the Solicitor General file with the Supreme Court an emergency petition for summary reversal? Such a reversal, according to Scotusblog.com, is issued when the Nine “grants certiorari in a case and overturns the opinion below without written briefs or oral argument on the merits.”

We understand how rare such emergency petitions are and how long the odds. No guts, though, no glory. As far as we can tell, it’s the only approach to the Supreme Court that might get the Nine to address the matter before the election. It beckons because it is so evidently the intention of the District Court to run out the clock in the hope that Vice President Biden wins the election and revives the case against General Flynn.

It’s the part of newspapering to put that kind of concern into plain language. This is a case that centers on the refusal by the court to grant to the duly-elected Trump administration the presumption of regularity, meaning the presumption that is supposed to be accorded official acts — that they are made in good faith. If that can be withheld in this case, why not in any case on which any judge has a personal opinion?

Then again, too, there’s another reason to at least try for a summary reversal. It’s that things are so bitter that there’s no guarantee a pardon would be accepted by the district court. We’ve said this before, but after the full D.C. circuit’s ruling, our concern only grows. If the circuit can deny the presumption of regularity in a government motion to drop the case, why couldn’t it deny the presumption of regularity to a pardon?

Or set up a left-wing amicus to question the President’s motive for a pardon? One might say that the pardon is plainly a part of our American bedrock. Then again, too, so is the separation of powers. That hasn’t stopped the district court or the nation’s second most prestigious circuit from ignoring the doctrine of separated powers. Why would the district court feel bound to accord the presumption of regularity to a pardon? Mr. Trump can always try the pardon if the Nine flinch.

The Circuit confined its ruling Monday to procedural matters. It stood aside for a district judge who has emerged as part of the judicial resistance to Mr. Trump that has been underway since his inauguration. “As the underlying criminal case resumes in the District Court,” the circuit concluded, “we trust and expect the District Court to proceed with appropriate dispatch.” To which one can but quote Raymond Chandler: Go ahead, kid me.