An alarming interview with Rudy Giuliani has shed light on what may be the most disturbing game plan thus far for Team Trump in the run-up to the midterms and beyond, and it has to do once again with the President asserting executive privilege where he has no business doing so.
The piece from the upcoming September 10 issue of the New Yorker paints a picture of a legal team whose strategies have shifted essentially with every new twist and turn in the ongoing Mueller probe, from denials to admissions and back again, all the while attempting to “negotiate” a sit-down interview between Trump and the special counsel in which neither side can seem to agree what would be discussed.
At one point, the Giuliani-led cadre of presidential lawyers concluded that waiving their right to claim privilege over recordings gathered in the FBI raid of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s office was a wiser move than risking that the Special Master (appointed by the court to decide what could be privileged and what could not) would determine that the recordings of Trump would not be covered by executive oversight — thus indicating that the Special Master believed they contained evidence of a crime being committed.
But the real battle, Giuliani contends, will not be fought in a courtroom, but in the court of public opinion:
If Mueller remains the white knight, it becomes more likely that Congress might at some point turn on Trump.”
That has been the impetus for the White House effort to discredit Mueller and, by extension, the entire intelligence community that has thus far agreed with Mueller’s findings, indictments, and lines of inquiry. Since securing what he believes is an ironclad agreement that Mueller would not indict Trump while he was in office, Rudy’s only concern has been impeachment. But the interview with the former Mayor of New York revealed a political strategy that may — pardon the term momentarily — trump all the effort on both sides:
Giuliani pointed out a little-known aspect of the agreement that Trump’s original legal team struck with Mueller: the White House reserved the right to object to the public disclosure of information that might be covered by executive privilege. I asked Giuliani if he thought the White House would raise objections. ‘I’m sure we will,’ he said, adding that the President would make the final call. In other words, the conclusion of the special counsel’s investigation could be the beginning of a contentious fight over whether Rosenstein is allowed to release a complete version of Mueller’s report.”
Now that the possibility of Trump and his legal team simply blocking parts or possibly even all of Mueller’s report, conclusions, and legal recommendations from public release has been raised, there is very little doubt that this is exactly what they will attempt to do.
Featured image via screen capture
