directing his legal team, you re telling me you would advise him not to sit for an interview with robert mueller? that s correct. and then what would happen? i mean, in the case of bill clinton if i m not mistaken, his testimony in that deposition in the paula jones was ultimately competented. your client bill clinton declined to voluntarily sit and then he was subpoenaed. is that right? , that s not right. he was subpoenaed in another proceeding. president of the united states though has a hard time to refuse, but i think in this case, president trump should because many of the underlying charges that mr. mueller is looking at could be difficult to prove. but if he lies to mueller, if he disassembles, one of the easiest charges for a prosecutor to make is false statement. so i think that is the enormous risk to the president if he sits
on that piece in the west who broke that story i was just reading. carol, what did you learn about what sounds like quite an intense meeting between the president s lawyers and mueller? yes, this was an interesting meeting that seems to keep producing interesting news. it was march 5th. the president s then lead lawyer and colawyer sat down with mueller in his office to basically talk about whether or not they were going to do the interview. a lot of things happened. some of which we ve already reported. this is the meeting where mueller tells trump s lawyers that trump is not a criminal target of his investigation at that point but just a subject. now we re learning that in that meeting, mueller raised the possibility not in a threatening way but kind of a veiled threat of i can subpoena your guy if you don t want to voluntarily bring him in. it caused not harsh words but some tense conversations about how the mueller investigation from trump s point of view was
think they play very well as overreaching. and it seems, david, we are hurtaling now, we re hurtling toward some confrontation as you said. there s going to be a fight. if the president says no, mueller then sends a subpoena. it goes to a court. this is where things get very serious. we are. it s important to remember, this is an inherently political process. there s some debate about this. the legal expert who s i find persuasive don t think the sitting president of the united states can be charged with a crime. there s some debate. i would be stunned if mueller decided to do that in this case. i agree with that. this is a political process. it s a process in what matters is for trump is how mueller s report and findings affect the american people s attitude toward preds and affect congress s attitude toward the president. so it is hurtling toward a conflict.
show than a top flight litigator or criminal defense attorney. he was the one that wrote down this list of questions, top picks that we re now seeing. is that correct? yes, i think there s been a lot of confusion about these questions. agreed. they were not provided by mueller s office to trump s lawyers. what happened was, the march 5th meeting sets in motion a lot of anxiety, one trump s lawyers know that maybe mueller is game to subpoena the president. which would be a big deal. akin to the time that ken starr subpoenaed bill clinton. they also asked for more information about the kinds of questions if they re going to consider even recommending this to their client that he sit down with these investigators. and when they ask for more information, they get a few more nuggets of topics we d like to cover. okay, we said we wanted to ask you about kislyak. we want to ask you about conversations you had with michael flynn about kislyak and also about other conversations
richard nixon, is subject to it. that means having to answer to a subpoena. at the end of the day, mueller has strategic considerations but he has the legal draw on trump as it were. he may have to take it to the supreme court. trump may try certain arguments. but mueller is right. it also makes the point, chris, people are sort of taking these questions as the current state of play. this was a month ago. what they really is are is the end of the road. they re the point when the negotiations went off course and trump and company said we are not going to try to give terms of an interview anymore. so it s really i think with this west report and what s happened to date reading between the lines. we re looking at a legal battle. it s much more likely than it seemed three weeks ago that mueller will serve a subpoena. trump will try to quash it and we re off to the races in the federal courtses.