Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, did an about-face Wednesday and said he now would prefer the president participate in an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller.
“I guess I’d rather do the interview,” Giuliani told the Washington Post in an interview. “It gets it over with, it makes my client happy. The safe course you hear every lawyer say is don’t do the interview, and that’s easy to say in the abstract. That’s much harder when you have a client who is the president of the United States and wants to be interviewed.”
The comments from Giuliani are a reversal from Tuesday, when the former New York City mayor cast doubt on a possible presidential interview with Mueller and his team of prosecutors.
“If they said, you have to do it now, the answer would have to be no,” Giuliani told the Wall Street Journal.
Giuliani expressed concerns that Trump could “talk himself into becoming a target” during a sit-down with Mueller’s office.
The president has expressed a willingness to talk with Mueller, saying May 4 he would “love to” speak with the special counsel.
Giuliani, however, told the Washington Post that Trump sometimes flip-flops between granting an interview and resisting.
“There have been a few days where he says, ‘maybe you guys are right,’” Giuliani told the Washington Post of the president siding with his lawyers who are opposed to an interview with Mueller. “Then he goes right back to, ‘Why shouldn’t I?’”
The former New York City mayor, who recently joined the president’s legal team, said a decision on whether Trump will sit down with Mueller will be made in “the next couple weeks.”
Trump’s lawyers have been skeptical about a presidential interview with Mueller and are working to narrow the scope of questions to issues that occurred prior to his election.
The president’s legal team is also reportedly considering the potential of Trump answering some questions in writing and others in person.
In addition to discussing whether Trump will sit for an interview with the special counsel’s office, Giuliani also addressed the futures of Mueller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
There has been speculation and concern among Democrats the president would fire the three.
“I don’t think he is going to make changes. I wouldn’t advise it,” Giuliani told the Washington Post. “Before I was his lawyer, more of his political adviser, we might talk about it. We don’t talk about it all now.”
