Not only was the dropping of the case against retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn justified, it is time to investigate the investigators' setting him up in a perjury trap for a non-crime, according to civil liberties legal expert Alan Dershowitz on Newsmax TV.
"It's really a scandal, because he didn't commit a crime," Dershowitz told "Saturday Report." "A year and a half ago I wrote an article he never should have pleaded guilty, because he didn't commit a crime."
Dershowitz rejected some who have called for the judge to reinstate the case "on controversy," because both the prosecution and defense have dropped the case, so the judge has no jurisdiction to rule without controversy.
"I hope this puts an end to it, an end to the case as far as Flynn is concerned, but I think there needs to be further investigation," Dershowitz added. "Should the FBI be allowed to create new crimes?"
Flynn was charged with one count of lying to federal investigators, but Dershowitz argues it was a process crime created by wrongful prosecution of the Logan Act, which is an obsolete statute that has not applicable to modern-day prosecution.
The Logan Act was created in the 18th century to preclude American citizens from speaking on behalf of the U.S. government overseas, but Dershowitz argued that Jimmy Carter and NBA star Dennis Rodman, seeking diplomacy with North Korea, would have been more guilty than a presidential transition team official like Flynn.
"They had him on tape talking to a Russian diplomat, which was perfectly proper, by the way, and then they ask him a question only to spring a perjury trap," Dershowitz, author of "Guilt by Accusation," told host Grant Stinchfield. "They withheld documents that should have been turned over to the defense.
"This needs to be investigated."
This is a case "that should have never have happened under American jurisprudence," Dershowitz concluded.
"One thing I am glad about is many conservatives now are becoming very sensitive to civil liberties, forget about the left," Dershowitz, a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat, told Stinchfield. "Many on the left who used to claim they were civil libertarians are just fair-weather civil libertarians.
"They care about it only when it helps their party, and they don't care about it when it helps the other party.
"Every civil libertarian should be applauding Attorney General William Barr; he did the right thing and she should continue to investigate."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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