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NEW YORK (AP) – President Donald Trump will not respond, in writing or in person, to questions from federal investigators as to whether he has attempted to block the investigation into Russian interference during elections in 2016, said a Thursday presidential lawyer.
Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said the issues surrounding the obstruction of justice were "lawless".
Giuliani's statement was the most definitive rejection of Special Adviser Robert Mueller's efforts to interview the President about any effort to hinder the investigation into a possible coordination between his campaign and the Russians. He reports that Trump's lawyers are committed to protecting the president from answering questions about the president's actions.
It is unclear whether Giuliani's public position was approved by Trump, who said he wanted to answer questions under oath. Negotiations on the scope and format of an interview are still ongoing. If the legal team maintains its position, it could force Mueller to attempt to summon the president, which would likely trigger a confrontation leading to the Supreme Court.
Mueller's office has already tried to question the president about the problem of obstruction, including his dismissal last year of former FBI director James Comey and his public attacks on the Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The Trump legal team argued that the president has the power to hire and fire the appointees, and that the special board does not have the power to ask him to explain these decisions. Giuliani said Thursday that the team was unshakable in this position.
"It's a no-go, it will not happen," Giuliani said. "There will be no questions at all about the obstruction."
In a letter last week, Mueller's team said it would accept Trump's written responses on issues related to Russian electoral interference. Giuliani suggested Thursday that Trump's lawyers had accepted the conditions but wanted to forbid investigators from asking additional questions.
"It would be in written form and if you want to follow up on our answers, justify it, show us why you did not arrive the first time," Giuliani said. He stated that he did not categorically rule out answering a second set of questions, but that the whole question of whether there would be follow-up inquiries should be settled before the president would answer at all.
"We will not let them launch them," said Giuliani, who was a lawyer-spokesperson for the president's legal team, using television interviews and public commentary as tactics in the news. negotiations.
He has repeatedly moved the goalposts over what would be required for a presidential interview and, at times, was compelled to clarify the previous statements. In previous interviews, Giuliani had suggested that some obstruction issues could be allowed if prosecutors showed the need and previewed issues with defense counsel.
Trump, in a Fox News interview recorded before Thursday night's rally in Montana, did not hesitate to answer a question about a possible interview with Mueller.
In the last letter to the legal team, Mueller's office did not respond to questions of obstruction, indicating that investigators would later assess the additional information needed by the president after receiving a answer about written submissions.
The person familiar with the letter spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not allowed to publicly discuss the negotiations.
Giuliani's statement was sharply criticized by Democratic Party representative Adam Schiff, who tweeted, "Trump's legal team never intended to let him interview, knowing that he is unable to say the truth. It is time to call the chair to appear. No one is above the law. "
Although the president has publicly stated that he is eager to answer Mueller's questions, his lawyers have been much more reluctant to make him available for an interview and wondered if Mueller had the right to ask him for any actions. under the Constitution. , take as president. Giuliani's comments came just hours after Trump's Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh espoused a broader view of executive powers and declined to say whether a president could be summoned and forced to testify.
Mueller's team raised in March the possibility of summoning the president to appear, even if it would indisputably provoke a judicial brawl.
The Supreme Court never ruled definitively on the issue of whether a president may be compelled to testify, although the judges decided in 1974 that Richard Nixon should produce records and documents that had been assigned.
In addition to questions about Comey and Sessions, Mueller expressed interest in Trump's role in writing a statement to the New York Times about a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with his son Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer .
Trump Jr. took the meeting, the emails show, after being described as part of an effort by the Russian government to help his father's campaign by providing derogatory information on Democratic Hillary Clinton.
Trump said that he knew nothing about the meeting before it happened.
Trump and Giuliani led an attack on Mueller's credibility, claiming that the special advocate was biased and that the entire investigation was a "witch hunt". Giuliani also demanded that the investigation suspend his activities as the mid-term elections approach, but the former mayor said on Thursday that he was not sure of Mueller's intentions.
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Associated Press editors Eric Tucker and Chad Day reported in Washington.
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Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire
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