It’s the weekend, which means it’s time for Rudy Giuliani to go back onto the Sunday political morning shows and attempt to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The biggest question hanging over the investigation right now is whether or not Trump will sit down with Mueller for an interview. Trump’s team has been reluctant to give a straight answer to that question over the past few months.
But Sunday on “Meet the Press,” Giuliani told Chuck Todd that Trump’s team has “pretty much decided” that it won’t sit down with Mueller, unless the special counsel can prove that there’s “some basis for this investigation.”
This comes after the New York Times reported on Friday that Trump’s team set new parameters for a voluntary meeting with Mueller.
It wrote that Trump will only agree to it if Mueller “has evidence that Mr. Trump committed a crime and that his testimony is essential to completing the investigation.”
Trump’s legal team also wants “evidence that the special counsel exhausted every other investigative measure before asking the president to answer questions, and that he is the only person who could provide them with the information they are seeking.”
Will Pres. Trump sit down with Mueller? Rudy Giuliani tells me, "We're pretty much decided where we are…we would not recommend an interview with the president unless they can satisfy us that there's some basis for this investigation" #MTP
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) July 8, 2018
Giuliani echoed this sentiment on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday.
“We’ve been through everything on collusion and obstruction,” Giuliani said. “We can’t find an incriminating anything, and we need a basis for this investigation.”
Mueller has already obtained guilty pleas or indictments from former Trump associates and 13 Russians nationals.
Trump has repeatedly said that he wants to meet with Mueller. When Stephanopoulos confronted Giuliani about this, and said it was hard to believe Trump’s own words given what Giuliani was saying, the president’s attorney proceeded to attack the investigation as a whole.
“Well, it is hard to believe given all the things that have been shown about how tainted this investigation is,” he said. “This is the most corrupt investigation I have ever seen that the Justice Department is allowing to go forward.”
Giuliani added that the Trump team was not concerned about the fact that Trump’s former “fixer” and personal lawyer Michael Cohen now appears to be cooperating with the investigation.
“We want Michael to handle this in a way that’s most helpful to him. Michael’s not going to lie, he’s going to tell the truth, and as long as he does that we have nothing to fear,” Giuliani said.
Overall, this seems to be another attempt by Trump’s team to discredit and stall Mueller’s investigation. By demanding an unreasonable amount of information from Mueller and his team, Giuliani is trying to make the public believe that it is Mueller’s fault that Trump is not voluntarily agreeing to meet with him.
Unfortunately, the incessant attempts to invalidate the investigation and paint it as a “witch hunt” seem to be working.