Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz weighed in Saturday on how federal authorities treated former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
“There are two issues: Did he lie at the time the FBI came to him? The answer is yes. Could he have told the truth? Yes. The second is: Does the fact that he pleaded guilty prove that he’s guilty? Absolutely not. He pleaded guilty because of the enormous pressures on him even though I think he could have won the case,” Dershowitz said in a Fox News interview Saturday.
Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who worked on Trump’s campaign before his short stint as national security adviser, pleaded guilty last December to lying to the FBI about his conversations during the campaign with Sergei Kislyak, the Russian ambassador at the time. Flynn’s charge came about through special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, and Mueller cited Flynn’s cooperation with the probe when he requested earlier this month that Flynn not serve time.
“It’s not a proper function of law enforcement or of a grand jury to ask you a question that they know the answer to. Their function is to get new information. But if they already know the answer and ask you the question, it’s for one purpose only: to test your morality, to test your truthfulness,” Dershowitz said.
Earlier this week, the judge in the case requested documents related to Flynn’s FBI questioning, ahead of his expected sentencing next week. The FBI recommended Flynn not have a lawyer present, according to a court filing.
“The FBI shouldn’t be sending people in, telling you not to have counsel, and hope maybe you’ll commit a crime so then they can squeeze you and get you to sing or compose. That’s not [the] way American law enforcement should operate,” Dershowitz said.
Dershowitz said civil libertarians should be concerned about these tactics by law enforcement, pointing to Judge T.S. Ellis III’s criticism of Mueller during the Paul Manafort trial.
“What Mueller is doing is trying it find low hanging fruit, figure out every way to get them to commit a crime, it’s their fault that they commit the crime and then squeeze them so they’ll sing or compose. Welcome to how special counsel operate,” Dershowitz said.
Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, was convicted on eight counts of bank and tax fraud in September in a Virginia trial presided over by Ellis and then pleaded guilty to two felony charges in Washington, a deal that involves cooperation with Mueller’s investigation. Mueller has since claimed Manafort violated his plea deal by lying to investigators.
