Doesn't a "perjury trap" need an actual lie to work?

[Ohioboy]

I may not understand everything at all times, but I'm pretty sure the telling of a falsehood is the responsibility of the person telling the falsehood and not the person hearing it.

As I understand it, this whole "Flynn was entrapped" thing is based on discussions between FBI agents talking about getting Flynn to lie. Well, isn't that what law enforcement does all the time, try to get people to contradict themselves and find out where their stories fall apart? If a lie is told, even under casual questioning, is it not grounds to probe further? Why wouldn't the FBI talk about getting him to lie?

What am I missing?

[PoliticAverse]

1. The "Perjury Trap"...

https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1756-perjury-cases-special-problems-and-defenses-perjury-trap

[Ohioboy]

4. If I understood the information at the link you gave correctly...

It sounds like the perjury trap defense does not work very well. That's probably because in order to use it the defense literally has to admit to lying. Did I understand that?

[PoliticAverse]

6. Right. The "perjury trap" is an "entrapment defense". In "entrapments" the dependant has in fact...

committed a crime but the defense is that law enforcement caused a crime to occur that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Entrapment: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/section-1/entrapment

[exboyfil]

2. I have been waiting for a veteran prosecutor

to walk us through some of the organized crime cases and the tactics they employed. A good analogy already exists for the Central Park Five.

[genxlib]

3. To me

A perjury trap is asking a person something you expect them to lie about. For instance..."Did you have sex with Monica Lewinsky"

The FBI should have no expectation that an appointee to NSA would lie about contacting a foreign entity. Unless there was something underhanded being discussed.

[unblock]

5. A perjury trap is when there's no underlying crime and the only goal of the question

is to give the respondent the opportunity to lie under oath so you can charge them with perjury.

There has to be a good legal reason to ask the question beyond the hope they will lie so you can charge them with perjury.