Last Friday, Robert Mueller let Donald Trump’s legal team know that they would accept responses on at least some questions in writing. Or rather someone on Donald Trump’s legal team says that Mueller is willing to allow some in-writing responses. Because Mueller doesn’t leak to the press, but for Trump, leaking is a critical part of his political strategy. So the accuracy of this information is possibly in question and certainly … strange.
According to the New York Times, Mueller is willing to address issues of conspiracy between the Russian government and Trump’s campaign through pen-and-ink. If so, that’s likely because the facts in question there are just that, facts—numbers, dates, incidents, emails, and texts that are not in doubt. What Mueller is likely to ask Trump on these points are details that confirm or deny things he already has documented.
Notably not on the list of things that Mueller is willing to let Rudy Giuliani, or someone with more sense of what’s acceptable, pencil in for Trump are questions concerning obstruction. The Times report states that “Mr. Mueller and his investigators understood that issues of executive privilege could complicate their pursuit of a presidential interview and did not ask for written responses on that matter.” Which makes it seems as if Mueller is following the insistence that Rudy Giuliani inserted in the last letter from Trump to the special counsel’s office that obstruction was off the table.
Only that makes no sense. Obstruction is the area more dependent on Trump’s intentions, and it seems highly likely that this is an area where Mueller would want one of his team to talk to Trump face to face. Trump’s feelings about the why behind some of his actions may well not be recorded on paper, or may only exist in the testimony of other people Mueller has already questioned. Taking obstruction out of the questioning doesn’t mean that Mueller is giving Trump a waiver in that area, but not pursuing questioning on this point would seem to be leaving a big gap in the record. Trump’s team either believes that Mueller is agreeing to leave off obstruction, or is hanging onto the claim that Mueller agreed to drop this subject so they can pretend to be outraged later.
With Mueller willing to let Trump’s brainy friends do some of his homework, and the scope of things he would need to address limited to an apparently very small set of issues, this would seem to suggest that the idea of Trump actually sitting down to talk remains a possibility. But it’s a very, very unlikely possibility.
The idea that Trump “still wants to talk to Mueller” and that only Rudy and the rest of his legal team tugging full time on Trump’s leash keeps him from rushing into the special counsel’s office to have an unlimited, face-to-face shoutdown, is exactly the story they want out there. Just as the carefully shaped leaks of the letter from Mueller’s team are part of Trump’s strategy to make it seem that Mueller is whittling down the range of items under concern, Trump’s “eagerness” to talk to Mueller is a PR line that keeps getting tossed out there.
He has nothing to hide. He’d love to talk to Mueller! Except he doesn’t. Because he does. Have something to hide, that is.
One of the snippets of Bob Woodward’s soon-to-be-released book tells the story of Donald Trump sitting down to a test session with his own legal team standing in for Mueller. As soon as Trump is asked something uncomfortable, he lies. When asked about something he doesn’t know, he makes stuff up. And the whole session ends in anger, with both Trump and his lawyers rightly confirming that this is not something that’s going to happen. Donald Trump can’t get through an order at the McDonald’s drive-through without lying about his order when he gets to the window. He is never going to talk to Robert Mueller unless he feels that his strategy requires that he talk to Robert Mueller.
And it might. Giuliani has already been extremely open about the tactics that Trump intends to use going forward: Keep hammering Mueller in hopes of reducing his credibility, oust Jefferson Sessions to put the investigation into the hands of someone who can sharply limit its scope or end it altogether, then fight the release of any final report under claims of executive privilege.
Agreeing to talk to Mueller behind closed doors might be an acceptable risk, if Trump feels like he needs to put on a show of cooperation, and if that show is going to end with any result of the testimony locked in a safe under the foundations of the new Trump Tower Moscow. But the odds are it simply won’t happen. Trump’s team will continue to shoot back to Mueller conditions that no investigator or prosecuting attorney would accept. And they’ll continue to leak reports to the Times and elsewhere about all the “difficult negotiations” they’re going through, when they actually have no intention of finding a solution.