Rudy’s terrible, horrible, no good idea about Trump sitting for a Mueller interview to speed things up
JUST SAY NO: Mueller will wrap up obstruction investigation by Sept 1 if Trump interviewed by July
In my January 24, 2018 post I explained why, Trump should not voluntarily submit to an interview with Mueller:
Trump is a salesman by nature. He’s given to bombast and hyperbole. He shoots from the hip.
Those characteristics, while they proved valuable against the comatose and drab Hillary, could be a disaster in an interview with Mueller. Mueller’s team is very experienced in these perjury and obstruction traps. They will not ask any questions they don’t already know the answer to, and the questions they ask will not be posed to obtain information. They have all the information. They will be probing not for information, but for mistakes.
Don’t do it. I don’t know what power Mueller would have to compel testimony, but nothing should be done voluntarily.
This is such a no-brainer, I’m really worried Rudy Giuliani, who is Trump’s new key legal advisor, will screw it up. At least as reported, it appears that Rudy is doing just that, and has suggested to Mueller that any interview would be contingent on an end date to the investigation.
The NY Times reports:
The special counsel plans to finish by Sept. 1 its investigation into whether President Trump obstructed the Russia inquiry, according to the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, who said on Sunday that waiting any longer would risk improperly influencing voters in the midterm elections in November.
The office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, shared its timeline about two weeks ago amid negotiations over whether Mr. Trump will be questioned by investigators, Mr. Giuliani said in an interview. A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment….
Mr. Giuliani said that he and Mr. Mueller’s office were still hammering out the terms of an interview with the president. He portrayed his client as a willing interview subject, saying that in the president’s view, no evidence exists that his associates coordinated with Russia’s election interference.Mr. Giuliani said that an interview would be a distraction for the president and that the amount of preparation required meant that the president could not sit for questioning until after the scheduled summit meeting between Mr. Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, on June 12 in Singapore. Based on that schedule, Mr. Giuliani said, the president could be questioned around Independence Day.
Fox News makes clear that the idea came from Rudy:
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has told President Trump’s legal team he should be able to wrap up the Russia investigation by Sept. 1 if he is able to interview Trump by mid-July, Rudy Giuliani told Fox News on Sunday.
Giuliani said he and Mueller spoke about an end date to the investigation approximately two weeks ago. During that conversation, Giuliani told Mueller that any interview of Trump by the special counsel would be contingent on knowing when the probe would wrap up.
This is a horrible idea on so many levels. It will not even wrap up the Russia investigation. It will end nothing.
If Mueller wants Trump to sit across the table from him and answer questions, he should have to fight for it, and Trump should fight back. To the Supremes if need be. This is about the survival of Trump’s presidency which is being pursued by Mueller’s posse of hired guns.
This also will not help Republicans in the midterms. You want to get Trump voters to the voting booth? Appeasing Mueller so he can drop his bombs by September 1 is not the way. If Mueller will not back off the interview setup, then precipitate a court battle over whether the presidency can be stolen. If you want voters to fight for you, then fight for yourself as an example.
In news of other horrible ideas, I plan on a Legal Insurrection “Swimming with the Sharks” trip just before which I will throw some blood in the water to see which way the current is moving.
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Comments
If this investigation was really a search for the truth, Mueller could submit his questions in writing to Trump. Mueller won’t because it ain’t.
Trump should direct his attorney to tell Mueller hell no.
After we already know they lie in their interview reports, and after incident after incident where the media lied about what he said.
No. Just No. No.
Duh Donald has lied, and he lies habitually, reflexively and pathologically.
So has his son lied. That’s all just #reality.
One liar accusing another?
Are you saying the Mr. Establishment DOES NOT lie?
He brags about lying, you moron! The question isn’t “Does the man lie”. It’s “When does he tell the truth?”
You are the Meathead of this blog.
Congratulations.
“Rob ‘Meathead’ Reiner Says We’ve Never Had TV Networks Align With a President”
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/05/rob-meathead-reiner-says-weve-never-had-tv-networks-align-with-a-president/
You are the Harry Reid of this blog…without the brains and personality.
True, but you’re not contradicting Valerie. You’re both right.
OMG
Please tell me that Trump is not that friggin’ stupid!
He’s not.
A lot could happen between now and July. A lot happens every day.
What.Is.Rudy.Thinking.?!?!?!?!?!? No! No! No! No! No!
Surely Rudy is playing him for the flounder that he is.
Otherwise, that would mean the unthinkable.
Rudy was a good prosecutor, good mayor, and capable administrator. One downside: I think he is better politician than lawyer.
The problem Rudy is that in the end it always comes out being about Rudy.
Rudy’s biggest problem is one he shares with everyone who tries to represent Duh Donald.
His client.
So much can and will unfold before then. Mueller could be a shell of what he now seems. Maybe the IG Report and Huber’s grand jury have a huge effect. Each day the affair is seen more political. Each day there is more reasonable doubt.
Much of the public has not started to tune in to the actual misdeeds. If Trump’s corruption is on the table, when he was not running the government, then the corruption of his enemies in government should be on the table as well. The latter is categorically worse.
There’s nothing Mueller can do to compel Trump in any way. The mask has come off, everything Trump said is true, worse. CIA and FBI are spying on candidates. You expect the opposition to plant people, not make up crimes, cooperate with the FBI and foreign intelligence, and get paid by the US government.
I’d offer a blanket amnesty for everyone as long as they confess in writing and resign. Failure means prosecution. There isn’t one of the Mueller crew that isn’t swamp-dirty.
I agree with the Professor, but…
I always try to look from my opponent’s perspective so I don’t get surprised by something.
So, assuming Rudy is not stupid and not a bad attorney, why do you think he is doing something that on its face looks so stupid?
When I am skeptical of Trump’s moves, my husband always tells me that everything he does is planned and that he knows much more of what is happening than it appears.
Maybe Rudy read The Art of the Deal and is stalling for the IG report which should bring most of this to a screeching halt.
I doubt Trump, his attorneys or, even Mueller for that matter, want a long,-drawn court fight over a subpoena.
It really wouldn’t help Mueller to achieve his goal and he’d really be rolling the dice on the SCOTUS.
Better to string Muller along and let those IG reports manifest.
Sigh. I hope Trump doesn’t take this bad advice from Rudy. I fear he will and Mueller will hang him on a technicality. If that does happen, expect there to be a civil war. It may be what these leftists and hate filled Never Trumpers want.
“Trump is a salesman by nature. He’s given to bombast and hyperbole. He shoots from the hip.”
Trump is, unfortunately, more sinister than acting as, or otherwise pretending to be, a blowhard ranting worthless bilge. Trump’s crime may or may not be “collusion” but his corrupt lifestyle has been displayed before God and everyone by “our” self-designated “real estate magnate” whose large fortune lies mostly within his mouth.
His work history, his criminal associations, and his stealing from his employees, vendors, investors, customers, tenants, politicians and now the government, are well documented by six bankruptcies and Trump University. His casino businesses have been found guilty of money laundering & bank fraud; his dissemination of fake occupancy numbers at his Florida properties and for Trump SoHo are known by the authorities.
What we need here is a Professor Jacobson investigation along the lines of the Elizabeth Warren gem. Her worse lies do not approach the corrupt actions of our president.
So does Mueller have all he needs to charge the president? Yes! But will he be permitted to do so? Bill Maher thinks Trump is above the law.
Cite one authority to back up your stupid comments.
What a putz you are.
IF you were not so consumed by worship of your Great Goad Cheeto, you’d know about all this stuff from your own exercise of good civics.
What’s funny is the claim that “We knew what we were getting with T-rump”, juxtaposed with your slavish insistence that he’s NOT any of the very many bad things we know he certainly IS.
I agree with the proposition that no sitting POTUS can be indicted. Mueller appears to, as well.
Gad-fly
6 bankruptcies our of 100’s of businesses. His percentage of wins is far superior to just about anyone
Stealing from his vendors? You make me laugh, he couldn’t stay in business if he had.. Bank fraud and money laundering? Show me the proof, and I do mean proof.
Go spew your dirty wears somewhere else.
“Trump is, unfortunately, more sinister than – ”
I’m sorry, we can’t hear you over the sounds of all the dying immigrants and homosexuals rounded up for Extermination.
BTW, what are you doing out and about anyway? Somebody call the Trump SS, I think we missed one.
So what did we just see with China?
OMG!!! Trump is going to impose TARIFFS!!! What a reckless idiot!!! Trade war, gloom and doom, we’re all going to die.
Except that it didn’t happen. What did happen? China conceded that it would indeed have to do a few things to increase certain aspects of US trade, property rights, etc, etc. A concrete target has been announced; the details have yet to be arranged, but China has conceded that it should and will take action beneficial to the US. This is yuuge—when was the last time we’ve seen any such thing from the Chinese?
So what happened to the trade war? It was evidently a tool Trump used to advance his agenda. It didn’t have to actually happen in order to work.
And what do we see here? OMG!!! Trump is going to talk to TORQUEMADA!!! What a reckless idiot!!! Gloom and doom, he’s going to walk into the world’s most obvious trap. Sounds familiar, huh?
Except that it’s not going to happen. What did happen? Mueller has conceded that his “investigation” has an end point—despite appearances, it is not The Investigation That Wouldn’t Die.
Just like China, the details remain to be worked out. But the conceptual framework has been conceded.
The Mueller meeting will take place about the same time as the China trade war. Sometime around … like, maybe, never.
So, take your pick. Trump is either an absolute babe in the woods, a sucker for any thug with a law degree and a government job … or he’s the finest tactician American politics has seen in the past hundred and fifty years.
Our professional politicians, clumsy oafs that they are, will never admit this, any more than our professional Press will admit that it’s a herd of circus seals barking for chopped fish. But we’re not politicians or seals; we can be smarter than both. And inductive logic tells us that the President can be smarter than both, too.
“or he’s the finest tactician”
Yes, he is. I suspect that the sitting down with Mueller thing is another tactical misdirection on Trump’s part.
All I can say about this is that on so many issues Trump/spokesman makes a statement and then the msm goes into hissy fits and then Trump doesn’t do any of the things he mentioned earlier. This has got to be a head fake. Trump knows that he does not have to sit for Mueller and without a crime he will never go before a grand jury.
Is there a constitutional confrontation in the offing?
Can special counsel Robert Mueller require President Trump to testify before a grand jury? It would be unprecedented, and his effort to do so could lead to a major constitutional confrontation.
The president could, of course, resist a grand jury subpoena by asserting his right under the Fifth Amendment not to be a witness against himself. However, for political reasons, he may not wish to do that. And he may not need to.
…
The importance of all this to the president is that it is unlikely that he can be forced to give grand jury testimony simply to satisfy Mueller’s curiosity and submit to a potential perjury trap. He could, in short, put Mueller to his proof—make Mueller show that the president’s testimony was necessary to prosecute someone else. And that such evidence could not be obtained elsewhere. That is a high bar, indeed, and one that at this point Mueller has not shown he would be able to surmount.
https://www.weeklystandard.com/theodore-b-olson/mueller-v-trump
Trump will never sit down in a Mueller interview. This is nothing more than misdirection bombast as everyone awaits the OIG and other reports. Once these reports and other information comes out, Mueller will no longer be able to justify his job and the Mueller probe will come to an end.
Giuliani is not an idiot. He already stated Mueller has to give them access to any spies the government had in the Trump campaign. Mueller won’t do that for a myriad of reasons. Interview over.
Unless you hear ANYTHING from the horses mouth I would not waste my time hyperventilating over anything reported by the media.
Sept 1. Why, that’s just the perfect amount of time before the election for the MSM to
demagogueexplain the findings to the public. What a coincidence!Rudy thinks Mueller is coming from an honest place and “if we just go in and say we didn’t collude, it’s all better”
Mueller isn’t dirty, but he is a mercenary given a job. His job is to get a scalp. He’s Lee Van Cleef in Good the Bad and the Ugly. Sure, you can also pay him, but he’s still fulfilling that other contract.
Sorry, but I totally disagree. mueller is FILTHY DIRTY and always has been.
Go and look at the craptastic history of his actual persecutions and corrupt prosecutions.
Mueller is dirty as something made from dirt, dropped in another kind of dirt, then kicked around by Pigpen all day. He’s dirty, vindictive, and dangerous. Innocent men are dead because he hounded them. He’s bad and makes others worse.
Sound advice from a late, great, First Lady:
“JUST SAY NO !”
William A. Jacobson: If Mueller wants Trump to sit across the table from him and answer questions, he should have to fight for it, and Trump should fight back.
The danger is that if Mueller does subpoena Trump, and wins in court, which is quite likely, then Trump may have to testify before the Grand Jury without the benefit of counsel. Knowing Trump (you do know Trump, right?), that would be a disaster.
Trump could always invoke the Fifth Amendment.
No, Trump *can* invoke the Fifth, but it would be political suicide. At that moment, every single media outlet would go into 24/7 blast mode that would make what they’re doing now look like trivia.
Anyway, there are only two options:
1 – Trump is dumb and is actually wanting to sit down with Mueller for an interview under oath.
2 – Trump is smart, and is willing to say he is willing to be interviewed, but has no desire to actually sit down under oath with somebody who obviously intends on perjury-trapping him.
Evidence so far indicates the second option. We’ll see.
You mean like how the media HASNT already been going full retard 24/7 already?
georgfelis: : Trump is smart, and is willing to say he is willing to be interviewed, but has no desire to actually sit down under oath with somebody who obviously intends on perjury-trapping him.
In other words, he is lying about his desire to testify. That is probably correct. The effect, however, will be to draw out the investigation.
There’s a sure-fire defence to a “perjury-trap”, and that’s to tell the truth.
From your mouth to Scooter Libbys ears.
The Justice Department has a trial conviction rate of between 93% to 99% depending on what sources you cite. Most defendants never get to trial. There is intense pressure to plead guilty. The cost of proceeding to trial is prohibitive. A guilty plea is worth points on the sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors have been known to use coercive tactics such as threatening to prosecute family members. They also may seize your assets using civil forfeiture or grand jury proceedings.
I doubt Michael Flynn would agree with you.
countrylaw: There is intense pressure to plead guilty.
What’s the world coming to if a well-off, well-connected, white man can’t get a break.
countrylaw: I doubt Michael Flynn would agree with you.
Flynn admits he is guilty, and is cooperating with the Special Counsel.
But is he actually guilty? All the publicly available evidence says he is not.
Milhouse: But is he actually guilty? All the publicly available evidence says he is not.
His signed statement that he lied is certainly publicly available evidence. What’s the world coming to if a well-off, well-connected, white man can’t get a break.
Ask Ted Stevens, Scooter Libby, Conrad Black, Michael Milken, and the four innocent people Robert Mueller knowingly kept in prison so he could protect Whitey Bulger.
Wins what Zachriel?
mailman: Wins what Zachriel?
Presumably Trump will fight any subpoena. There’s a number of grounds to do so, though ultimately he may lose that fight.
It’s only words from Rudy. He may have suggested this knowing there would be HELL NO outcries from every legal mind in the country. Which he’ll show to Trump. Who will hopefully listen.