THE WAR ON MUELLER
IN A WARREN OF LOW-CEILINGED ROOMS ON THE GROUND FLOOR OF THE WEST WING, DOWN THE STAIRS FROM THE OVAL OFFICE AND NEXT TO THE SITUATION ROOM, DONALD TRUMP’S LAWYERS ARE WAGING WAR.
They’re locked in battle with Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, who has indicted 19 people over the past 13 months, five of whom have pleaded guilty. Now he is homing in on the investigation’s most powerful subject: the President, whom Mueller wants to testify under oath about what he knows.
It’s a dangerous moment for Trump. If he agrees to talk, the notoriously undisciplined President risks making a false statement, which could be a crime like the one that led to Bill Clinton’s impeachment. But if he refuses, Mueller could issue a subpoena, instigating a long, high-profile court battle over whether Trump could be forced to testify. The two legal teams—Mueller’s squad of top prosecutors and Trump’s rotating cast of advocates—are haggling over what an interrogation would look like: how long it would be, what topics would be on the table and whether the session would be recorded. Before the President talks to investigators, Trump’s team wants to see the authorization letter that established Mueller’s authority, according to Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani. They are also demanding the special counsel’s report to be issued within 60 days of any interview.
As that conflict grinds on largely out of sight, Trump is leading a brazen political campaign to discredit Mueller. In Trump’s telling, the special counsel’s investigation was illegitimate from the start, the product of partisan bureaucrats hell-bent on nullifying his election and willing to stoop to nefarious tactics to frame the President’s team and cover up the crimes of Barack Obama and the Clintons. The President paints the probe as an unconstitutional distraction that has dragged on and turned up nothing, while casting a pall over his achievements.
Trump’s allies have taken
