Pres. Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani tells @GStephanopoulos “we don’t have to” comply with a potential subpoena from the special counsel, adding “He's the President of the United States. We can assert the same privileges other presidents have.” https://t.co/R6JsMQN9yM pic.twitter.com/RX6MLYeQ2e
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 6, 2018
New Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said his client doesn’t have to comply with a subpoena to testify in Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s Russia probe.
“Well, we don’t have to,” he said on ABC’s This Week. “He’s the President of the United States. We can assert the same privileges as other presidents have. President Clinton negotiated a deal in which he didn’t admit the effectiveness of the subpoena.”
Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton were all issued subpoenas while in office.
Host George Stephanopoulos, who worked in the Clinton administration as a Director of Communications and Senior Advisor, pointed out that Clinton did testify before a grand jury in the Lewinsky investigation.
“But only for two-and-a-half hours,” Giuliani said. “Only with an arranged format. Would we be willing to do that?”
Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and whether the Trump campaign had anything to do with it. U.S. intelligence officials said in a report declassified January 2017 that the Kremlin directed efforts to help Trump win the election.
Generally speaking, Trump has publicly seemed at least a little open to the idea of speaking with the Mueller team in some capacity, but it’s unclear if he’ll actually do so, and both the president’s critics and supporters worry he might walk himself into getting prosecuted.
“I’m going to walk him into a prosecution for perjury like Martha Stewart did?” Giuliani told Stephanopoulos regarding the subpoena.
[Screengrab via ABC News]
