Donald Trump’s advisers believe that Special Counsel Robert Mueller will soon want to have a talk with Donald Trump.
Lawyers for Trump have been discussing with FBI investigators a possible interview by the special counsel with the president as part of the inquiry into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.
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But Trump’s attorney’s have an alternate proposal. Rather than talk to Trump, they would like to offer Mueller a written statement instead. It seems improbable that any form of written response could substitute for a face to face interrogation. Especially not the type of response that NBC News indicates the Trump team is proposing.
In addition to the possibility of suggesting the president submit written responses in place of an interview, a second person familiar with the president’s legal strategy said another possibility being contemplated was an affidavit signed by the president affirming he was innocent of any wrongdoing and denying any collusion.
Trump’s legal crew is seriously proposing that Trump send Mueller a signed statement saying that he’s “innocent of any wrongdoing” and that would be the end of that. Because that’s apparently how Trump believes the justice system works—whatever he says, goes. Let’s hope he’s wrong about that.
For a special counsel to request a direct interview with the president isn’t unusual. But a response of “here, take this note instead” is more than unusual, it’s intolerable.
“Prosecutors want to see and hear folks in person,” said Chuck Rosenberg, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and chief of staff to FBI Director Comey. “They want to probe and follow up. Body language and tone are important,” said Rosenberg, now an NBC News analyst. “And they want answers directly from witnesses, not from their lawyers. The odds of prosecutors agreeing to written responses are somewhere between infinitesimally small and zero."
No matter how much Trump’s attorneys would like to avoid the inherent danger of subjecting Trump to a series of questions he’s not allowed to ignore, the only way that’s going to happen is if Mueller’s investigation is halted.
There is one additional point of interest in addition to Trump’s attempt at riffling through a Monopoly set for the official White House response to an interview request: Timing.
Ken Starr was appointed as special prosecutor to investigation Whitewater in 1994. For the next three years, as that investigation slowly trickled away without results, Starr didn’t seek an interview with Clinton. In fact, Starr was the second special prosecutor in the Whitewater “scandal.” Earlier, Robert Fisk has been appointed to the task, to great Republican acclaim, but after six months he reported back that he could find no evidence to continue an investigation. Republicans demanded the appointment of another special prosecutor … which was how Starr began.
At the end of 1997, Starr wrapped up the Whitewater investigation with the same lack of results and began writing his final report for Congress … then in January 1998, Linda Tripp called Starr to inform him about the relationship between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Starr decided to relaunch his investigation on a wholly new topic.
When Starr did interrogate Clinton, it was one month before he issued his report.
Does this mean that Mueller is nearing the end of his investigation? That’s impossible to know. But if he’s actively seeking an interview with Trump, it likely means that he already has evidence in hand that leads straight into the Oval Office.