The FBI tried to trap former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn into lying, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz said Monday, but he doesn't know why the retired general would have lied about something that wasn't a crime.
"We remember very carefully the Martha Stewart case, where they got her for talking to the FBI," Dershowitz told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "I hope the judge understands when he has the case tomorrow that Flynn did not commit a crime by lying because the lie has to be material to the investigation."
If the FBI already knew the answer to its questions and only asked Flynn to give him the opportunity to lie, "his answer, even if false, was not material to the investigation," said Dershowitz. "Lying to the FBI is not a crime."
He also said he does not believe Flynn will face a jail term when he is sentenced Tuesday.
Flynn's legal team last week claimed the FBI pushed the retired general not to bring an attorney to his Jan. 24, 2017, interview with agents. He will be sentenced on Tuesday to charges of lying about conversations he'd had with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period.
Meanwhile, Dershowitz said President Donald Trump's lwyer, Rudy Giuliani, "made it very clear" this weekend that the president is finished cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller.
"He understands it's an adversarial hearing," said Dershowitz. "Mueller will do anything to try to get people to sing or perhaps even to compose and that cooperation is now off the table. It was on the table early on in the investigation, and then it became clear to the trump defense team that cooperation was getting them nowhere."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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