Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Tuesday, before former national security adviser Michael Flynn's sentencing, that he hopes the judge in the case will ask some "very, very hard questions" about whether the retired general's plea to lying about communicating with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak was valid.
"I don't think believe it was a valid plea," Dershowitz told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "I think that Flynn was coerced into pleading guilty to a crime which he was innocent. He was coerced by threats against his son, his fortune and the reason I think he was innocent is even if he told an untruth, which it seems as if he did, it was not a material untruth."
The government already knew everything it was speaking with Flynn about, including that he'd had conversations with Kislyak, and the nature of the talks.
"They had recordings of it," he said. "When you ask a question that you already know the answer to and you have proof of the answer, there is only one purpose to the question and that is to elicit a lie, to do a morality test and that's not a proper function of the FBI."
It would take a lot of courage for the judge to throw out Flynn's plea, as he has already accepted it.
"Simply lying to the FBI alone is not a crime unless it's material to the investigation," said Dershowitz. "I don't believe it was material to the investigation."
He said he also expects Flynn will speak after his sentencing, as he'll be free to say what he wants.
"I hope he will tell the truth about why he pleaded and what pressures were on him and how he felt during that interview," said Dershowitz. "It would be very interesting to hear from him, although he might be afraid they'll come after him on some other alleged crime."