Two lawyers for President Donald Trump are urging the President to decline special counsel Robert Mueller’s request for an interview in the Russia probe out of concern that Trump would end up lying to investigators, the New York Times reported Monday, citing four sources familiar with the matter.
Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the possibility of an interview with Mueller’s team since late last year, and they’ve reportedly been looking for ways to avoid or limit a sit-down interview between the President and Mueller’s investigators.
Now, John Dowd and his deputy, Jay Sekulow, are urging Trump to avoid the interview. Trump has a history of making contradictory statements, leading his attorneys to worry that he could commit perjury and be charged with lying to investigators. Trump’s attorneys and some of his advisers believe its unlikely Mueller would subpoena a sitting president if he refuses an interview, per the Times.
Though many hope Trump will decline the interview, Ty Cobb, another lawyer for the President, has steadily pushed for Trump to fully cooperate with Mueller’s probe and accept the request for an interview, the Times reported.
Trump himself has said he is willing to sit for an interview with Mueller’s investigators, going so far as to say last month that he’d be willing to talk to Mueller under oath. After that comment, Cobb quickly clarified that Trump didn’t mean to say he’d be willing to testify under oath.
Gee, this is a surprise.
I mean, it’s not like he’s arrogant, unprepared, undisciplined, with a tendency to say whatever is on his mind rather than that on which he has been coached (a circular argument back to “arrogant” as he believes he knows more than his lawyers), and, lest we forget it: guilty as sin.
I just don’t get why his lawyers wouldn’t trust him in an interview… (Even if he stuck to the lines his lawyers coached him on, he would get out and tweet the truth later anyway…)
If Trump does not sit for the interview (Or, as I like to think of it, The Grilling), then he forfeits the idea that he has nothing to hide. Sad!
Oh Mourning Joe was trolling him big time this morning…
After playing a clip where Donald was saying (about the memo) “Oh we got them”
He listed the colleges he went to and quoting that NY times article where they said that they were afraid
that Trump would purger himself as he is known to lie.
Joe looks into the Camera and says:
Donald are you going to let those lawyers tell you you are not smart enough to face Meuller?
You go ahead and show them you have the best brain and the best words.
Mourning Joe comedy hour ? Who knew .
Made me laugh at an impossible situation
Trump’s lawyers have had conversations with him, been in meetings with him, seen him in action. They know he is totally incapable of telling the truth to anybody, to any audience for longer than 5 minutes, if that. During the course of negotiating with Mueller’s team about when and how Trump might answer questions, they have certainly worked with Trump on some probable areas of inquiry and how to reply. They have already heard the lies he will tell and they have seen his inability to focus. And no amount of coaching has been successful in getting him to tell even a limited truth.
ETA: And the extent of his problem with the truth is so great, that the lawyers would rather take their chances in the courts fighting a subpoena, along with the political and public-perception fallout that would accompany that, than let him be interviewed now. If they drag it out and lose in court, I expect them to then again try to negotiate an interview rather than let him testify before a grand jury.
Then bring his fat ass before a grand jury!