President Trump’s team of personal lawyers are preparing to launch a legal fight preventing sections of special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report on Russian election interference from being made public, according to a report.
Part of a deal struck by Mueller’s team with Trump’s outside legal counsel includes a provision that allows the White House to object to the public disclosure of information uncovered by the federal inquiry if it can be protected by executive privilege, the New Yorker reported over the Labor Day weekend.
“I’m sure we will,” Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lead external attorney, told the magazine when asked whether he and his colleagues would mount that argument when the time came.
At the conclusion of the Mueller-led probe, the team of federal prosecutors will send a report to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein instead of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from overseeing the investigation. Rosenstein then may release the findings to Congress or the general public.
Giuliani also told the New Yorker that Mueller advised him his office wouldn’t criminally indict Trump, so the biggest legal threat to the president is impeachment by Congress.
“The thing that will decide that the most is public opinion,” Giuliani continued. “If Mueller remains the white knight, it becomes more likely that Congress might at some point turn on Trump.”
But he added there would be little stopping Mueller if he decided to haul Trump before the probe’s grand jury, impaneled to help the inquiry.
“He’s gotta do it. He doesn’t have a choice,” Giuliani said of the president testifying before the grand jury. “Under the criminal law, everyone should be treated the same.”
