BREAKING (CNN): Trump does 180 on Mueller interview, goes from offering to talk under oath to having his lawyer say that lawyers will decide if Trump talks to Mueller at all.
I'm not going to say I told you so, only because everyone who reads this feed knows that I told you so.
I'm not going to say I told you so, only because everyone who reads this feed knows that I told you so.
2/ My point has always been that if you want to know if a defense attorney is going to allow a particular sort of client to talk to a prosecutor, *ask defense attorneys*. As a former defense attorney, I'd *never* in 1,000 years let Trump talk to Mueller. Nor will Trump's lawyers.
3/ Mind you, Mueller has ways of getting Trump to talk. But what we're discussing *now* is a *voluntary* interview of any kind. Trump's attorneys are going to make Mueller *work* for this opportunity to speak to Trump, and work *hard*.
4/ Trump knows this very well, as undoubtedly he's discussed it with his lawyers, which means that everything he's said about talking to Mueller over the past few weeks has been *pure theater* that media has lapped up because it's interesting, not because it has any truth-value.
5/ From day one, my feeling has been that Trump would declare that he *wanted* to talk to Mueller but his attorneys prevented him from doing so. Over the past few weeks he's paved the way for this excuse by saying he *wants* to talk to Mueller. Today the other shoe finally fell.
6/ Trump loves "will he/won't he" political stripteases that stretch on for weeks and turn U.S. politics into a chintzy reality television show. He has masterfully done exactly that, yet again, with the issue of speaking to Bob Mueller. The lawyers were always going to stop it.
