A recent article in the Washington Post titled A Mueller mystery: How Trump dodged a special counsel interview - and a subpoena fight had a few interesting details regarding Mueller's attempts to interview Trump under oath, and the subsequent responses by Trump's legal counsel. As usual, however, the mainstream media just never gives up and continues the spin pushing the leftist agenda. It's yet another very clearly biased article, meant to make the reader think Trump is guilty and trying to avoid being caught by ostensibly 'evading' Mueller's desire to subpoena him or at least interrogate him under oath.
The simple fact, however, is that very clearly any half decent lawyer would do all they could to avoid having their client under oath in almost any legal case. This is especially true in a situation such as Mueller's, where the prosecutor has zero probable cause, zero evidence of any actual legal wrong-doing, and has been on a very protracted and extremely nasty and highly questionable witch hunt basically extorting guilty pleas from others for supposedly lying to the FBI when even the FBI said they hadn't lied. Even more so when the prosecutor has a long history of highly questionable and likely illegal prosecutorial conduct, not to mention his recent railroading of individuals such as Gen. Mike Flynn.
(for more information on this issue, see The Curious Michael Flynn Guilty Plea New developments in Flynn's case raise questions about the circumstances under which he pled guilty to lying to the FBI., Exculpatory Russia evidence about Mike Flynn that US intel kept secret, Deep State Redacted Comey Comments in House Intel Final Report on Trump and Russia That Absolve Gen. Michael Flynn, and House Intel Russia Report: FBI Agents "Did Not Detect Any Deception During Flynn's Interview").Never-the-less this WaPo article waits until literally the very end of the article to finally present those key bits of information - e.g., Mueller had no probable cause, no legal justification, no basis what-so-ever to insist on an interview. That the entire thing was just on a massive fishing expedition and basically an attempt to set up what's known as a "perjury trap." No matter that these facts are the key to the entire issue. Here's just one example of the absurd spin in this article:
"...What is known is that the president's lawyers now believe keeping their client from sitting down with investigators was their greatest victory..."How, exactly, is this in any way "known?" Is the article author a mind reader or what? They sure can't present anything to support that claim. Even if it were true, so the heck what? It's utterly moot. About all it would show is just how little Mueller had on Trump that this could possibly be seen as some big victory out of the entire shebang.
"...The president would not have helped his case had he gone in", said Mark Corallo, a former spokesman for Trump's legal team."No lawyer worth his salt would let that happen...."That's obviously true to anyone who's dealt with lawyers to any extent for depositions, and especially when being questioned on the stand in front of a jury.
Once many years ago I was in a professional training class (associated with the Nuclear Power industry). The instructor was an excellent and highly respected lawyer, who was also actually very nice and extremely helpful.
Anyhow, he asked for a volunteer to do a mock interview in order to show us that when you are dealing with lawyers, you should almost never expound on your answers to their questions, just stick with yes or no when possible, and very brief pointed answers otherwise... and even then, lawyers can all too often very easily manage to make you seem guilty in very short order, even when you're entirely honest and innocent.
So this lawyer set up a simple scenario and I wound up being the person "on the stand." Obviously I hadn't done the "thing" the lawyer was trying to make it seem I'd done in the scenario, because the scenario hadn't even happened. Yet it didn't take this lawyer more than five minutes to have me sounding guilty as sin to the entire room - even to myself! - although I'd given nothing but totally honest brief answers.
Once it was clear to all that I was "guilty," the questioning was over. It was also disconcerting that even forewarned against becoming emotional, and generally being quite level headed in professional situations, when being painted as guilty still managed to get me a little flustered... which just added to the impression that somehow I must be guilty! Even so, the lawyer complimented me and said I'd managed to avoid his traps and stay calm far longer than most people.
The entire class all wound up both with our eyes seriously opened, but also laughing in amazement about how skillful questioning by a lawyer can all too easily use one's own words to paint you guilty when in fact you are totally innocent. It truly was an amazing experience and quite the lesson.
Point being that any lawyer would have done their best to prevent Trump from sitting down with an opposing lawyer intent on tripping him up and who was on nothing more than a massive fishing expedition. It would be far too easy to wind up with Trump being charged for something that was utter bull.
Yet here the Washington Post article is, after the massive embarrassment of Mueller's report essentially exonerating Trump, making it out like Trump would just lie on a whim during any such interview and thereby trap himself, or that he was guilty and trying to evade being caught by not agreeing to sit down with Mueller for a blatant fishing expedition which had no basis in law or the evidence.
I can't blame Mueller too much for trying - he was likely desperate to find anything he could hang on Trump - but it's absurd for the mainstream media to keep trying to paint this as somehow evidence of Trump's guilt or perfidy.
They're beating a dead horse and grasping at straws to say the least.
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