“Things Have Changed” – Giuliani Says Decision On Trump-Mueller Interview Coming In July

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has offered yet another update on the ongoing negotiations with Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team over the terms of a possible presidential interview, according to the Washington Post. And Mueller likely won’t be happy. A final decision on whether Trump will assent to an interview won’t be made until mid- or late-July, Giuliani said. Although, at this point, it sometimes seems like Giuliani is just taunting and stalling, and that Trump has already decided to forgo an interview and dare Mueller to try issuing a presidential subpoena. After all, Giuliani said last week that a decision would arrive by the end of this month.

“I’m advising him to stay put, to hold our horses a little,” Giuliani told The Washington Post in an interview, about an hour after Giuliani said he spoke with Trump. “I doubt August, and I doubt too far into July. But I do think things have changed.”

“I’d like to get it done, our part over to them by July 4,” he said, but added that developments at the Justice Department could lead him to advise the president to hold off.

Of course, Giuliani and Trump obviously feel that the Inspector General’s report, which highlighted extreme anti-Trump political bias within the ranks of the FBI – though it ultimately exonerated the DOJ and the bureau’s senior leadership and opted not to impugn the Mueller probe – has bought the president some time. Last week, Giuliani said he’d use the report to undermine the special counsel’s probe. Giuliani added that, if talks collapse in the coming weeks, he’s unsure whether Mueller would try to subpoena the president, which would likely trigger a legal battle that would rise all the way to the Supreme Court.

Giuliani denied that Mueller was pressing Trump’s team to make a decision.

“We just don’t know,” Giuliani said. “They have an argument for it and against it. It could blow up in their face and they’d have to just file a report. At this point, they’re not pressing us.”

Mueller has reportedly promised that, if the president agrees to a sit-down interview, he could finish a report on whether Trump tried to obstruct the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election within 90 days.

Then again, Giuliani has also scoffed at the suggestion that he’d let Trump sit down with Mueller.

“Do I look crazy?” Giuliani responded. “So far, you know, I still have all my senses, and I’m a heck of a lawyer. And I get drummed out of the profession if I did. I mean, the reality is, you don’t put your client in a kangaroo court.”

We imagine we’ll hear more from Giuliani next week, when he announces yet another delay on Trump’s long-awaited decision on whether to meet Mueller face-to-face.