Donald Trump’s legal team, with the expert “I know Robert Mueller” guidance of Rudy Giuliani, has made an offer to the special counsel—one that he’s very likely to refuse. Because what they’re are offering is a interview in which both the questions and the answers are so restricted, that no information is actually exchanged.
As the Wall Street Journal reports. the offer would take the interaction between Trump and Mueller down to questions on a single topic: Collusion. Off the table are questions about obstruction, which Giullani contends are covered by “Article 2 of the Constitution” which gives the executive power to hire and fire within the offices of that branch.
At this point, Trump’s supposed offers to talk to Mueller have gone from “I would love to speak. I would love to. Nobody wants to speak more than me," to saying that he would talk to Mueller if the subject was limited to collusion and obstruction, so long as nothing to do with Trump’s business was discussed. And now obstruction is also off the table.
In May, a list of questions that the special counsel investigation would like to put to Trump was leaked to reporters at the New York Times. That list contained dozens of questions. About collusion. About obstruction. And about Trump’s business dealings.
On the collusion front, Mueller seemed to be particularly interested in Trump’s dealings with Michael Cohen, about whether he was aware of Jared Kushner’s efforts to set up a back channel to Russia, and how much he knew about the Russian contacts being made and encouraged by long-time adviser Roger Stone. Mueller also wanted to know about Trump’s own interactions with Russian officials, going back at least to his 2013 visit to Moscow, which was the visit where Trump claimed he had not stayed in the city overnight, but flight records show he was there at least two nights—one of which was famously featured in the investigative work of Christopher Steele.
But in addition to business questions that went to potential money-laundering and tax evasion, similar to some of the charges now leveled against Paul Manafort, the majority of what appeared on Mueller’s list of potential Trump questions was on the topic of obstruction. While Giuliani may wave all this off with a recitation of “Article 2,” the questions included topics such as Trump’s actions in preparing an excuse for the Trump Tower meeting between his staff and Russian officials, an excuse which Trump knew to be a lie. And while Trump may have been in his rights to fire James Comey, that doesn’t mean he didn’t lie about the reasons for either dismissal. Obstruction questions also included possible offers that Trump has made to signal those under investigation to stay silent and wait for a pardon.
Trump’s “offers” have gone from being “eager” to talk about anything, to being willing to talk about only two topics, to being willing to talk on only one topic. And even that is overstating what his team is putting forward now.
While Giuliani may treat his statements as a serious “offer” and say that there is still some prospect of Trump willingly sitting down with Mueller, he knows that this—like most of the things he has said since coming on Trump’s legal team—is patently untrue. Even at the beginning of discussions with the special counsel team, Trump’s team wanted to so limit the interview in length,and scope,that it would severely impact its value. And they wanted the interview to exist in some previously unavailable legal state where Trump couldn’t really be held liable for anything he said.
Mueller’s team didn’t agree to the ridiculous first offer. And since then, Giuliani has only made the deal worse, and worse, and worse. Because there is no deal. There never has been, and there won’t be,
Telling the truth about anything, for any length of time at all, is an unnatural state for Trump. If Rudy Giuliani could reduce the scope of the interview to a discussion of the current weather and limit Donald Trump’s answers to a series of blinks, it would still offer too much opportunity for Trump to perjure himself. The odds of Trump ever agreeing to sit down for a voluntarily interview on any topic, in any setting, at any length are vanishingly small.
There’s really never been an option. If Mueller wants to talk to Trump, it will take a subpoena. And the only reason that won’t happen is if the special counsel’s team has so much evidence against Trump through other witnesses and documents that they don’t feel they need his testimony.
Rudy Giulani shouldn’t be preparing for anything other than the fight over whether or not Trump can avoid responding to a subpoena. And he should be worrying every day that subpoena doesn’t come.