concerned, what i think will happen once the questions are submitted is, the mueller team will go through them with a fine toothed comb and see if there s any contributions to anything said by any of the witnesses, because the whole purpose of having him answer questions whether orally or in writing is a perjury trap. and the written questions make it much, much harder for president trump to fall into any kind of a perjury trap. and then they are in the perjury trap. sean: i think lindsey graham was pretty clear in saying, i think the hilary email investigation might then begin again, and they might spend the next two years investigating this for the 400th year. but then it raises, what
they believe if the president were to sit down, he might open himself up to a perjury trap. as legal experts point out, if the witness tells the truth, there s no such thing as falling prey to a perjury trap. as for the written ons anss, we don t know what the questions are about but we fwhee the answers won t be about. the president says his legal team is advising him not to answer questions. it s also true those questions are probably where the president is most vulnerable. his decision to fire james comey, his decision to pressure jeff sessions. it appears as though the special counsel team won t get the president on the record in terms of those questions. geoff, i ll see you in a bit. joining me now is msnbc national security analyst, former fbi
trying to answer them so they wouldn t get follow ups and that mueller s team would not dismiss the answers as not really answering the question and they might have to subpoena him. this has been such a long process in terms of trump wanting to talk to mueller and yet his lawyer is saying if he did he would get in a perjury trap. that it would be very hard for him to tell the truth. in may, the president said he would love to sit down with mueller, but in this new fox interview he said he s finished. there won t be a sit down. do you think mueller will be satisfied with written answers? it s a good question and i don t know the answers. what we see is a president that s finally listening to his attorneys who have advised him not to do this. whether or not mueller accepts the representation by his lawyers that any questions that involve the transition period or
and somebody says don t do it. whatever it is cynthia, do you think there s a part that says, in the end, you don t testify if you don t have to the oldest rule for the defendant. the oldest rule. there is zero chance that any lawyer would allow him to answer the questions and ever get in front of the grand jury and talk to mueller. that is never going to happen. if it goes up to the supreme court and the supreme court rules, he s just going to take five. this president is never going to testify. what about this take home exam? first of all, this business about i wrote them myself and all that excitement that he had today for us, that just didn t happen. that s just a lie. why would he lie he lies about by saying i personally put these words on this paper, doesn t that put him more into a perjury trap yes, absolutely. he s giving away a defense because one defense was always to be the lawyers made me right
such a request? from mueller s point of view he could argue we haven t broached the subject of obstruction of justice. and there is no substitute in a prosecutors mind in a back and forth where you are able to answer follow-up questions. and there is applicable supreme court precedent that the president does have to respond to a subpoena in a criminal investigation. president trump can argue this is harassment, it s distracting. it s an attempt to get him caught in a perjury trap and he s not going to cooperate. there is applicable supreme court precedent that says the president has to respond to subpoena. but there he may be able to take that question up in the case after court fight, and as you know, the supreme court has