According to Rudy Giuliani, Mueller has already rejected a proposal from Trump’s legal team that they submit answers to Mueller’s questions in writing:
Rudy Giuliani tells @NBCNews that Special Counsel Mueller rejected a Trump-team offer for the president to answer written questions in lieu of a sit-down interview.
— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) May 8, 2018
Giuliani says this happened about 10 days ago during his first meeting with Mueller.
Here’s more:
CBS NEWS – Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is now on President Trump’s legal team, told CBS News correspondent Paula Reid Monday that special counsel Robert Mueller’s office has rejected proposals to allow Mr. Trump to answer questions from investigators in writing.
The president’s legal team has signaled that this would be their preferred format for a possible interview, since it helps protect Mr. Trump from the possibility of lying or misleading investigators, which is a criminal offense.
Giuliani told CBS News it will take up to three weeks for him to get fully up to speed on the facts of the investigation and be prepared to engage in formal negotiations with the special counsel about the terms of a possible interview with Mr. Trump.
Giuliani told Reid that he and the president’s legal team continue to be in communication with the special counsel, but that he wants to have a better sense of the facts before engaging in formal negotiations about a possible interview.
Giuliani said Mr. Trump’s team also wants some issues to be off-limits, although he wouldn’t elaborate on which ones, and they want a time limit for the interview.
In addition, Giuliani also told Reid he’d want to know whether the interview would become public, and whether they would have the chance to issue a rebuttal to anything alleged by the special counsel.
If they can come to an agreement on the terms of an interview, Giuliani says he would like to wait until after the North Korea summit to prepare Mr. Trump. He believes that it would take several days to prepare the president for this kind of interview and he would not want to take him away from preparing for talks with North Korea.
If negotiations are not successful and Mr. Trump is subpoenaed, he will fight it, Giuliani said. The case would likely end up at the Supreme Court.
As Ed Morrissey points out, Mueller’s rejection of a written interview is an indication that Mueller is not trying to end the investigation:
If Mueller wanted to exit, all he needs to do is claim that he’s investigated as far as the law allows and hasn’t found anything to charge. His decision to take a pass on a written interrogatory signals that he isn’t looking for a way to the exit. He’s looking for a way to succeed in his prosecutorial efforts and justify the hardball tactics he’s employed so far. That’s why we’re probably heading to a showdown over a subpoena rather than a graceful conclusion.
Ed might be right about where this is heading, but I think Trump’s ego is so large that it’s going to be difficult to keep him from wanting to sit down with Mueller for an interview, despite all of the warnings he’s getting from his legal team and advisors.
In fact, the WSJ is reporting that Trump’s legal team has already begun to prepare him. But because of distractions they haven’t made much headway:
In an informal, four-hour practice session, Mr. Trump’s lawyers were only able to walk him through two questions, given the frequent interruptions on national-security matters along with Mr. Trump’s loquaciousness, one person familiar with the matter said.
I’m not gonna lie. I had to look up loquaciousness and it simply means “tending to talk a great deal; talkative”. LOL! That totally sounds like Trump.
So if I had to put money on it right now, I’d probably bet that Trump ends up agreeing to sit down with Mueller in lieu of a subpoena fight.