WRONG AGAIN , RUDY!
Clueless Giuliani falsely claims Trump can duck Mueller subpoena
Rudy Giuliani goes on TV Sunday to add to the chaos surrounding his legal defense of President Trump.
NO ONE is above the law — not even the President — despite the blatherings of his new mouthpiece, Rudy Giuliani, experts said Sunday.
The former Big Apple mayor who is now a lawyer for President Trump said he doesn’t think the President should sit down with special counsel Robert Mueller, and that a subpoena wouldn’t be worth the paper it was printed on.
“We don’t have to,” Giuliani said on ABC’s “This Week” when asked if Trump would answer a Mueller subpoena. “He’s the President of the United States. We can assert the same privilege as other Presidents have.”
But legal experts said Giuliani’s confidence is baseless. Mueller, they said, would be the favorite in the epic legal battle that would likely ensue if the special counsel issued a subpoena and Trump refused to answer it.
“No one is above the law,” said New York Law School professor Rebecca Roiphe.
The Supreme Court ruled in a case involving then-President Richard Nixon in 1974 that he could not use executive privilege to refuse a subpoena for White House tapes.
And in 1998, then-President Bill Clinton was served with a subpoena by independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr, though the order was never put to the test because Clinton ultimately agreed to testify before a grand jury.
Trump could try to duck a subpoena using a different legal theory — that as President he has complete control over the Department of Justice. There is disagreement among experts, but Roiphe said she doesn’t think that gambit would work.
“Prosecutorial independence is fundamental to American democracy,” she said.
Bradley Simon, a former federal prosecutor and top white collar criminal defense lawyer, predicted an executive privilege claim would go nowhere.
“I think Giuliani was just posturing,” Simon said. “The President is not above the law. He has to comply with subpoenas.”
Lisa Griffin, a law professor at Duke University, said the case could end up back at the Supreme Court if Mueller pursues it.
“It’s not accurate to say that sitting Presidents never have to comply with subpoenas. They have and they do,” she said.
Mueller is looking to question Trump, and has a list, which The New York Times obtained, of four dozen wide-ranging and multipart questions to ask him.
Trump has said publicly he would like to talk — but Giuliani said he’s not prepared to make that happen.
“Not after the way they’ve acted,” he said on “This Week.” “I came into this case with a desire to do that, and they just keep convincing not to do it.”
Giuliani did not rule out that Trump could invoke his Fifth Amendment right to protect himself from self-incrimination and decline to answer questions if he does sit down with Mueller.
“How can I ever be confident of that?” he said of Trump talking to prosecutors. “Every lawyer in America thinks he would be a fool to testify. I’ve got a client who wants to testify.”
But Trump, while campaigning for President in 2016, slammed Hillary Clinton staffers who requested immunity or invoked their Fifth Amendment rights in response to requests to testify about her private email server.
“If you are not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for?” Trump said at the time. “The mob takes the Fifth Amendment. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”
Giuliani suggested that it would be like walking into a perjury “trap” if he advised Trump to answer questions.
Trump has a long record of making false statements in public, which has led many legal experts to say he could get himself into trouble if he submits to grilling by Mueller.
Giuliani insisted Trump could end up pursued for perjury even if he tells the truth, since investigators may instead believe the account from former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired.
Investigators are examining whether Trump canned Comey to impede the Russia investigation before it was taken over by the special counsel. That could bring a charge of obstruction of justice. Comey says Trump demanded his loyalty and asked him to back off a probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, charges Trump denies.
“Could Comey be lying? You’re damn right he could be lying . . . . And we’re going to walk ourselves into a trap like that?” Giuliani said. “The special counsel so far seems to think that Comey is Moses. And I happen to think Comey is Judas.”
“You couldn’t put a lawyer on the show who wants to keep his law license to tell you he should testify,” Giuliani said of Trump.
Joseph diGenova, a former federal prosecutor and Trump defender who almost joined the President’s legal team and then backed out, also predicted he would not submit to an interview.
“The President will not sit down for an interview because this investigation has reached a level of bad faith. This is no longer a good-faith investigation,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Others say it is Trump who has acted in bad faith, and desperation, by attacking the investigation at every turn, and even denouncing Mueller in public.