if you read Ken Starr's book, you know that during a 180 minute interview, Hillary said some variant of "I don't know" or "I don't recall" over 100 times. Starr knew Hillary was lying, Hillary knew Starr knew she was lying, and Starr knew Hillary knew that he knew.
Dershowitz was sounding off on process crimes the other day,
Dershowitz Rips Mueller for ‘False Statement Prosecutions’ — ‘They’re Crimes That Were Committed as the Result of His Appointment’
”I think the weakness of Mueller’s substantive findings are suggested by the fact that he has to resort to false statement prosecutions, which really shows that he didn’t start with very much, and that the very fact that he’s conducting an investigation has created these crimes,” Dershowitz told Bill Hemmer. “These are not crimes that had been committed prior to his appointment, they’re crimes that were committed as the result of his appointment, and that raises some questions about the role of special prosecutors in creating crimes, or creating opportunities for crimes to be committed.”
“In the end, I don’t think Mueller’s going to come up with very much, in terms of criminal conduct, that existed before he was appointed, and that’s pretty shocking,” added Dershowitz.
We saw with General Flynn with the ambush FBI interview that Comey told Congress that Flynn didn't lie during that ambush interview, but Mueller charged him anyway, and threatened to indict Flynn's son unless General Flynn pleaded guilty.
If you ask a dozen people to describe an event, you're not going to get a dozen identical answers. Pick the answer you like and charge the other 11 with lying.
And yes, Russia was the thing they were accused of lying about because that was the thing they were interrogated about.
If they'd been interrogated about who took Mike Pence's cupcake from the lunchroom, they'd have been accused of lying about the cupcake.
Dershowitz is right on the money. There was no underlying crime here. Obama and Comey and the gang knew it when they got the FISA warrants, and Rosenstein and Mueller knew it when Rosenstein appointed Mueller. The name of the game was always to try to manufacture process crimes, and then overcharge people. And to go after people on unrelated charges, like Manafort's back taxes, and use that as leverage to get people to go along with your narrative. But for the Mueller investigation, Manafort's taxes would never have been pursued and in the unlikely event they had, it would have been dealt with administratively by the IRS and a small fine levied.