Trump Says He is Open to Mueller Interview

it earlier this year, I would love to speak. I would love to Nobody wants to speak more than me, in fact against my lawyers, because most lawyers they never

speak on editing. I would love to speak now. In an interview with Associated Press, Trump's lead lawyer, Rudy Giuliani did say that Trump will not answer federal investigators questions in person or even in writing about whether he tried to block the probe into Russian interference in the election, But about a half an hour ago on Air Force One, Trump against it. He's open to a Muller Q and

a under the right circumstances, joining me. As William Banks, Professor at Syracuse University Law School, So, Bill, unless you can follow the bouncing ball, you can't really keep track of what the what the president and his attorney are saying about this. But let's talk about written questions. That seems to be the easier of solutions, because Trump's lawyers

would obviously draft any written answers. It is, and and I imagine that's certainly his lawyers are pushing hard in that direction, both with the Muller team and in their conversations with the President. We know the President, however, assist inclined not only to disregard his lawyer's advice on many occasions,

but he likes to talk um. So I can imagine an interview where he agrees to speak, and then it's a question of, you know, how carefully is and what his memory is like, uh, and whether he's entirely truthful. So why would Giuliani be ruling out in his latest pronouncement,

be ruling out written questions and answers. Yeah, I think it's a matter of internal discussions among the lawyers in the White House, and there's probably a debate about whether they should try to just for forestall the effort to have an interview at all. Instead compromise, So oral or written I think is part of the compromise situation. In the end. I think, you know, if if Mueller continues to push hard for an interview with the president, he's he's likely to get it. We know that he could

probably force it through through a grand jury. He could probably subpoena Trump uh and force him to appear. That's why that's the way it started between ken Starrnville Clinton twenty years ago and then the Negotiati settlement, and the President did have an interview in the White House. It wasn't particularly successful. It was it was more of a of a media show than anything else, and it didn't

really impact the eventual proceedings of impeachment against Clinton. So Muller, what is Mueller's the advantage to Muller in allowing written answers where he doesn't get to, you know, test the president's memory and see his demeanor. Well, it's not as good as as an interview, that's for sure. But you know, we have to remember that Mueller has many sources to draw on here to issue his final report or to take whatever ever other additional steps you might want to take.

He's got interviews of what two dozen or more other witnesses who were involved in the administration who had close knowledge both of the Russia aspect and of the COMI firing, and it's going to be the Comic firing and potential obstruction. I think that the lawyers are advising the president to a void. They don't want to get him in with what Mr Giuliani is called the perjury trap. And you

know that's that's good advice. So let's turn now to the anonymous op ed. President Trump just said that he wants Attorney General Jeff's Sessions to investigate the author of the anonymous op ed. He said, I think it's national security. I would say Jeff should be investigating who the author of that pieces because I really believe it is national security. So is an investigation by the Justice Department in order here? Well,

I don't think so. You know, this is one of those things that you know, the President is h he's a very smart man, and he's using miss again to obscure, obscure the underlying difficulties that he's in because of the Mueller investigation. You know, the op it was an extraordinary event for sure, or extraordinary that it exists. An extraordinary that was published anonymously by The New York Times. But

it's not an action security issue. There's no you knows, as several people that have commented in the last couple of days. Uh, you know, there's dissent and discussion inside the administration all the time, not just the Trump administration. Every administration government is making sausage and executive branch in the same way that that the Congress makes sausage and trying to draft legislation. So I think this will blow over, uh, in the same way that so much has blown over

in the Trump administration. And again he's using it very cleverly, I think, to try to distract us from other issues before it blows over. Let me ask you another question about it. He also said on Air Force one again that he's administered ration is looking into taking legal action against The Times for publishing the article. Is there any kind of legal action you could imagine against the Times for publishing an op ed? No, is the short answer.

There's an absolute First Amendment right to publish. There's no such thing as a priory straint. There's you know, as the President himself has admitted on various occasions, the libel laws in this country, as he says, are are very uh favorable to the speaker or the writer, as they well should be. That's our whole tradition in our history in the United States, would be I think, the core freedom that neither The New York Times or any of

us would be willing to give up. It's obvious that not only the op ed, but the publication of the book by Bob Woodward is weighing on the president and it hasn't even really come out yet. But he also said today that if Gary Cohen took those papers off his desk, he'll never speak to him again. I mean, I don't I don't know what to make of his reaction to the Woodword Book, because, as you said, things happen.

You know, there are people inside white houses that talk all the time and say not nice things about presidents. That's right. And you know it's not Mr Trump who's special in this case. That's been true probably every president in our history, for those who work for him and try to shape policy that eventually gets made by the

executive branch. So I think, yes, the Woodword Book is uh is powerful because he's such a credible source and such a highly regarded journalist with a long distinguished record. So his sources, some of whom will identify themselves, and others won't, I think, have a great deal more credibility, say than the book that was published last winner or in the Winner of seventeam. So you know, again, the president has reason to be concerned about the releases, but

there isn't anything he can do about them. All right, Thanks so much, Bill. As always, that's William Banks. He's a professor at Syracuse University Law School. Today is the fourth and final day of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings

on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court. In two days of questioning, Kavanaugh refused to answer pointed questions on a host of subjects ranging from abortion to presidential powers, always refusing to answer any questions pertaining to President Trump. Here's Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal asking him about Justice Ruth Pader Ginsburg. This is not political, this is about Justice Ginsberg. You believe that her quote mind is shot, end quote Sarah. Respectfully,

you're asking me to after having read those comments. You're asking me to comment on something another person said, and I'm not going to do that. Joining me is Greg store Bloomberg, new Supreme Court reporter who has been watching just about every minute of these hearings, right, Greg, as much as I could. Okay, So I have to say that that exchange with Bloomenthal surprised me, even though I had heard, you know, much of what Judge Kavanaugh said. Why would a nominee refuse to say that an icon

on the Court has not lost it? Well, Judge Kavanaugh clearly was trying to stay as far away as he could from political controversies. And even though that was about a future colleague, that was clearly a comment had he been critical of what President Trump said, That was a comment that was going to be used for political purposes. Uh, And he wanted to stay away from that. He didn't

need to. This was a hearing where, uh, you know, really his main goal was to avoid making mistakes, and that was an area that potentially could have been mistake for him. Now it seemed as if he went even further than Neil Gorstch did in his nomination hearings in an attempt not to say anything. I mean, he refused to say, which gorste did, that it's not right to denigrade judges because of their ethnic background. He refused to say he would refuse himself from certain cases, even though

other justices have agreed to that. Is there a fear that Trump could rescind the nomination if he hears something he doesn't like. Well, you know that that's an interesting question. There were reports that uh, Donald Trump at least discussed resending Gorsige's nomination after he made those comments about being disheartened about about criticism of the judiciary or suggestions that a judge might be influenced by his or her ethnic background. Uh.

You know, I can't say what was motivating Brett Kavanaugh. Um, you are right, he did. He was even more careful than than Neil Gorcer was and in trying to stay out of those areas. Um. Uh, you know, did not give the Democrats the kind of answers that they wanted. But Democrats are powerless to to stop them. Giving the

Republican control of the Senate. No, there were some unusual exchanges with Senator Kamala Harris about whether he talked with anyone at a law firm Casuits about the Muller investigation. Did that end up going anywhere? Did Harris have any proof that he that he did talk to someone, because it was really a point that was pushed and pushed. Yeah she had any proof, she didn't show it. Um. No, it seemed like on on the first day of questioning,

she seemed like she knew something. She was asking him, she had this idea in her head that, uh, it seemed that maybe he had had an inappropriate conversation, and he was very worry about giving an answer. By day two, Uh, he had identified one person in the firm that he that he knows pretty well and said no, I did didn't have any conversations with him or or anybody else at the firm about the Muller investigation. And then that

was the end of it. Now. Senator Corey Booker ignited a little bit of a firestorm there when he, you know, said that he was trying to clarify where Kavanaugh stands on one of the one of his most controversial judicial decisions related to race. Where where do you see that he stands. Is it clear or it's ambiguous on the subject of race. So so Senator Booker was looking at a couple memos, a couple of emails that Judge Kavanaugh wrote, um or our series of emails that that he wrote

back when he was working in the Bush administration. One of them had to do with the case involving minority set asides and in federal contracting. Uh. And in that case uh, Mr Kavanaugh then Mr Kafanhaugh used language made it pretty clear he was very skeptical about this program.

He called it a naked racial set aside um. On the other hand, the other document that the other series that that that Booker was getting into had to do with racial profiling after nine eleven at airports, and they're what touch Kavanaugh Brett Kavanaugh seemed to say pretty clearly said was that he was not on the side of using racial profiling at airports, at least as a long term measure um. He would rather find a race neutral

way to ensure that airports are safe. So it was in some ways a mixed bag of stuff that that emerged from those emails. Now most people are saying that nothing really moved, No one moved in their positions on Kavanaugh. Does that include the two Republican female senators who are pointed at as possible votes for abortion. Yeah, they're They're both saying they don't have a final decision yet Uh.

Nothing Uh that they said indicated that they are changing from where where they've been, which is leaning towards voting to confirm him. Uh. Senator Collins UH did suggest that she was not especially bothered by another email that came out during this process, in which um Brett Kavanaugh, while working at the White House, had uh suggested some some language be changed in a draft op ed where originally it said that legal experts widely accept Rovie Wade as

as settled law. He suggested that, um, you know, that's not quite accurate. There are a lot of legal experts who feel otherwise. But Susan Collins said she you know what she'd heard about that she wasn't particularly bothered. So every reason to think that they are likely to vote to confirm him, and he will be confirmed, all right, Thanks so much, Gregg. That's Gregg's store. He's the Bloomberg

News Supreme Court reporter. And of course we know that it has been said by Mitch McConnell that he hopes to have a vote on Kavanaugh before the new Supreme Court term starts, and it's always the first Monday in Octour. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen into the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg m