Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's guilty plea to one count of lying to the FBI makes him "useless" as a witness moving forward in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia and President Donald Trump's election campaign, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Saturday.
"The last thing any prosecutor wants to do is to have to indict a primary witness for lying," Dershowitz told the Fox News "Fox and Friends Saturday" program. "If you indict your witness for lying, it really means he's not useful as a witness, he has no credibility."
Flynn, while pleading guilty on Friday, agreed to cooperate with Mueller's investigation, but Dershowitz said Saturday that he does not see that as a win for the special counsel, a former FBI director.
"I'm sure the prosecutor was dying to indict him for some scheme or conspiracy but there is nothing there and he had to finally come down and indict him for lying, which makes him a useless witness," Dershowitz said. "This is not a show of strength by the prosecutor but show of weakness. They have nothing on anybody above Flynn, and Flynn made the terrible mistake about lying about something he could have told truth about."
It was "perfectly lawful" for Flynn to have contacted Russia during Trump's transition period, said Dershowitz, and indicting him for lying does not show any strength in Mueller's prosecution.
"If they had anything more serious, they would have indicted him for it but they couldn't indict him under the Logan Act, that no longer exists," said the law professor, "the act that says, 'you can't negotiate a foreign power if you're not in office.'"
Meanwhile, collusion is not a crime, Dershowitz insisted, and neither is "making the deal with the foreign power."
"They may be political sins, but they're not a crime," he told the program. "Only lying to the FBi, which is the worst possible thing the prosecutor can bring to witness."
And as a result, the prosecution can use Flynn for background, but "he's no good as a witness because he's sold himself to protect his own son," said Dershowitz. "He's prepared not only to sing but even to compose and exaggerate. If I'm a defense lawyer, I have no trouble destroying his credibility on the witness stand."
The indictment and plea also show that Mueller's investigation is using the "domino theory," by going for the "low-hanging fruit" and squeezing them for information leading to somebody higher up.
"It's hope over reality, so I would not say this is a day for celebrating for the prosecution in the Mueller office," Dershowitz concluded.
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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