Thread: Shifting Strategy, Trump’s Lawyers Set New Conditions for Mueller Interview

Shifting Strategy, Trump’s Lawyers Set New Conditions for Mueller Interview

By Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman
July 6, 2018

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s lawyers set new conditions on Friday on an interview with the special counsel and said that the chances that the president would be voluntarily questioned were growing increasingly unlikely.

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, needs to prove before Mr. Trump would agree to an interview that he has evidence that Mr. Trump committed a crime and that his testimony is essential to completing the investigation, said Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s lead lawyer in the case.

His declaration was the latest sign that the president’s lawyers, who long cooperated quietly with the inquiry even as their client attacked it, have shifted to an openly combative stance.

Mr. Giuliani acknowledged that Mr. Mueller was unlikely to agree to the interview demands. Mr. Mueller could subpoena Mr. Trump to answer questions if he does not agree to voluntarily sit for an interview. Mr. Giuliani left open the possibility that the president, who has said in the past that he would be eager to sit down with the special counsel, would still agree to be interviewed.

Mr. Giuliani appeared to be in part trying to shift responsibility onto the special counsel for the lengthy negotiations over an interview — and was most likely prolonging them himself.

“If they can come to us and show us the basis and that it’s legitimate and that they have uncovered something, we can go from there and assess their objectivity,” Mr. Giuliani said in an interview. He urged the special counsel to wrap up his inquiry and write an investigative report. He said Mr. Trump’s lawyers planned to write their own summary of the case.

A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.

The president’s lawyers want Mr. Mueller to explain how the Justice Department gave him the authority to investigate possible obstruction of justice by the president in what began as a counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s election meddling. The order appointing Mr. Mueller authorized him to investigate possible links between Moscow’s interference and Trump associates, as well as any matters that arose from the inquiry.

The lawyers also want evidence that the special counsel exhausted every other investigative measure before asking the president to answer questions, and that he is the only person who could provide them with the information they are seeking.

The gambit by Mr. Giuliani was the latest maneuver in an all-out assault by the president and his legal team in recent months to alter public opinion about the inquiry. They have come to believe that, if the Democrats win control of the House in November, the chamber will vote on whether to begin the impeachment process no matter the outcome of Mr. Mueller’s investigation. So they want to sway Americans — and by extension, lawmakers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/u...interview.html

I wouldn't give Robert Mueller or any of his cronies the time of day. If you ask me, this guy and all these crooked lawyers working for him need to be hauled away and locked up themselves for malicious prosecution of Flynn, Pappadopoulos, Manafort, Gates, that lawyer in England, and all the Russians and Russian entities. These are manufactured "crimes" that occurred only as a result of the improper corrupt investigation. That is not law, that is not justice, that is BULLSHIT!!

Shut this phony crap down and haul that idiot Rosenstein off to the slammer for a very long time for putting these poor people through all this over .... NOTHING .... and wasting almost $20 million of taxpayer monies on a fraudulent malicious investigation and illegal prosecution.