The Press

Giuliani plays down Trump self-pardon

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An attorney for President Donald Trump stressed yesterday that the president’s legal team would contest any effort to force the president to testify in front of a grand jury during the special counsel’s Russia probe but downplayed the idea that Trump could pardon himself.

Rudy Giuliani, in a series of television interviews, emphasised one of the main arguments in a newly unveiled letter sent by Trump’s lawyers to special counsel Robert Mueller back in January: that a president can’t be given a grand jury subpoena as part of the investigat­ion into foreign meddling in the 2016 election.

But he distanced himself from one of their bolder arguments in the letter, which was first reported at the weekend by The New York Times, that a president could not have committed obstructio­n of justice because he has authority to ‘‘if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.’’

‘‘Pardoning himself would be unthinkabl­e and probably lead to immediate impeachmen­t,’’ Giuliani told NBC’s Meet the Press. ‘‘And he has no need to do it, he’s done nothing wrong.’’

The former New York City mayor, who was not on the legal team when the letter was written, added that Trump ‘‘probably does’’ have the power to pardon himself, a claim challenged by legal scholars, but says the president’s legal team hasn’t discussed that option, which many observers believe could plunge the nation into a constituti­onal crisis.

‘‘I think the political ramificati­ons would be tough,’’ Giuliani told ABC’s This Week. ‘‘Pardoning other people is one thing, pardoning yourself is tough.’’

Trump has issued two unrelated pardons in recent days and discussed others, a move that has been interprete­d as a possible signal to allies ensnared in the Russia probe.

The letter is dated January 29 and addressed to Mueller from John Dowd, a Trump lawyer who has since resigned from the legal team.

Mueller has requested an interview with the president to determine whether he had criminal intent to obstruct the investigat­ion into his associates’ possible links to Russia’s election interferen­ce.

Giuliani said that a decision about an interview would not be made until after Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore, and he cast doubt that it would occur at all.

‘‘I mean, we’re leaning toward not,’’ Giuliani told ABC. ‘‘But look, if they can convince us that it will be brief, it would be to the point, there were five or six points they have to clarify, and with that, we can get this – this long nightmare for the – for the American public over.’’

Trump’s legal team has long pushed the special counsel to narrow his scope. Giuliani also suggested that Trump’s lawyers had been incorrect when they denied that the president was involved with the letter offering an explanatio­n for Donald Trump Jr’s 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians who claimed they could provide damaging informatio­n about Democrat Hillary Clinton.

If Trump does not consent to an interview, Mueller will have to decide whether to go forward with a historic grand jury subpoena. – AP National Party leaders have been forced to defend the integrity of their own MPs after Barnaby Joyce labelled some of them ‘‘scum of the earth people’’ for trying to pressure his partner Vikki Campion into having an abortion.

Veterans’ Affairs Minister Darren Chester slammed Joyce for tarring the Nationals’ entire

22-member party room during his paid tell-all interview on Channel Seven, and vowed to fight for a ban on MPs accepting money for interviews.

‘‘I’ve already had some informal discussion­s with my colleagues and that will continue in the coming weeks,’’ he told Fairfax Media.

The couple accepted $150,000

($NZ163,000) for the Sunday Night interview, which they will entrust to newborn Sebastian. During the segment, they cast aspersions on Joyce’s National Party colleagues by claiming unnamed MPs had demanded Campion abort her baby or there would be consequenc­es.

Joyce described federal Parliament as a ‘‘mad boarding school’’ containing ‘‘scum of the earth people’’ who tried to ‘‘make an incredibly difficult situation almost unbearable’’. assertion.

‘‘Some of the finest regional Australian­s I’ve ever met serve in the Nationals party room. I have no reason to think otherwise now. I don’t think name calling achieves anything in public life. If there are specific individual that the couple have concerns with, I think they should approach them directly and resolve the issue, not be collective­ly describing people in that manner.’’

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, who replaced Joyce as Nationals leader in February, also came to the defence of his maligned colleagues. ‘‘The people I serve with are the finest people in regional Australia.’’

Sky News reported a National Party source had confirmed Campion was pressured to have an abortion. In the Sunday Night interview, Joyce stressed he opposed abortion and said he knew as soon as Campion was pregnant that he would eventually lose his job as deputy prime minister. – Fairfax

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