Former national security adviser Michael Flynn shouldn't get a day behind bars, because what he pleaded guilty to wasn't a crime, Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Thursday.
"I think he was threatened," Dershowitz told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" about the retired general. "I think his family was threatened, his children were threatened. If I had been a defense lawyer, there is no way I would have allowed him to plead to that crime."
On Wednesday, a judge scheduled Flynn's sentencing for Dec. 18, just days after prosecutors for special counsel Robert Mueller's investigative team said they are ready for Flynn's case to come to a conclusion.
Flynn served as President Donald Trump's national security adviser briefly, after working as a senior campaign surrogate. He was forced to retire in February 2017 and pleaded guilty that December to charges of lying to investigators about his calls with Moscow’s ambassador a month before Trump’s inauguration.
Dershowitz also commented about Trump's decision to declassify several documents pertaining to the Russia investigation and to surveillance warrants against a former aide, saying that there ought to be a strong presumption of openness anyway.
"The only thing that should be (classified) are matters that would endanger national security," said Dershowitz. "We have to have a better process for classification because I would say that the vast majority of classified material today is classified to protect the reputation of people, not the national interest of the United States."
Related stories: