Giuliani: President wouldn’t have to obey a subpoena
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who has already roiled the White House’s legal tussle with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, asserted Sunday that the president would not have to respond to a subpoena in the special counsel’s wide-ranging Russia investigation.
Giuliani, who joined the president’s legal team two weeks ago, also said that if Trump does agree to be questioned, he might invoke his Fifth Amendment right to guard against self-incrimination by refusing to respond to some questions.
Giuliani, on ABC’s “This Week,” said Trump was under no obligation to obey a subpoena. “We don’t have to comply” with one, he said.
“He’s the president of the United States,” Giuliani said. “We can assert the same privilege that other presidents have.”
He was referring to President Bill Clinton’s choice to resist a subpoena in connection with the Monica Lewinsky investigation, though Clinton ultimately agreed to submit to questioning.
Giuliani, having emerged as a key catalyst in the separate Stormy Daniels case with his unexpected disclosures and changing stories about the president’s involvement in a pre-election hush-money payout to the porn actress, was somewhat more circumspect in addressing the investigation of Russia’s election interference and possible Trump campaign complicity.
Questions over whether special counsel Robert Mueller might seek to compel Trump to testify before a grand jury intensified last week after The Washington Post reported that Mueller had broached the possibility this spring, in talks with the president’s lawyers about whether Trump would agree to an interview with investigators.
A subpoena confrontation could substantially raise the constitutional stakes related to Trump’s dealings with — and his possible attempts at obstruction of — the Russia investigation, which the president has repeatedly termed a “witch hunt.”
Trump reiterated last week he would “love to” sit and answer Mueller’s questions. But he said he would do so only if he were convinced that investigators were treating him fairly.
Giuliani said he would strongly advise against such an in-person encounter, however.
“I’m going to walk him into a prosecution for perjury like Martha Stewart?” he asked rhetorically, alluding to the 2004 conviction of the entrepreneur on charges of obstruction and lying to investigators in connection with an insider-trading case.
The challenges faced by Trump in connection with the Russia investigation are being steadily amplified by the separate-but-parallel Stormy Daniels case. Trump’s former legal fixer, Michael Cohen, faces a criminal investigation after having acknowledged making a $130,000 payment to her shortly before the 2016 election that was intended to buy her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump more than a decade ago.
Giuliani and Trump each have offered inconsistent and contradictory explanations about when and whether the president was aware of the payment and the underlying motives for the agreement with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
Giuliani offered yet another glimpse into the netherworld of what the president’s surrogates have characterized as nuisance claims against Trump. In the ABC interview, Giuliani casually acknowledged that Cohen could have made payoffs to other women under circumstances similar to those surrounding Daniels’ allegations.
“I have no knowledge of that,” said Giuliani. “But I would think if it was necessary, yes.”
Seeking to explain why the president would authorize Cohen to make payments at his own discretion, without Trump’s knowledge, Giuliani suggested that sums such as the amount paid to Daniels were inconsequential to Trump as a way of brushing false accusations aside.
“I know this sounds funny to people there at home — I never thought $130,000 was a real payment,” he told ABC. “People don’t go away for $130,000 with a meritorious claim.”
Appearing on the same program, Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, said he was flabbergasted by Giuliani’s freewheeling round of television appearances on Trump’s behalf, including the one Sunday just before his own, in which Giuliani said he did not know when Trump became aware of the Daniels payment. Last week, Giuliani, supported by Trump, said the president had reimbursed Cohen. The president subsequently said Giuliani did not have the facts straight, but Trump did not specify what was wrong with Giuliani’s account or what the truth is.