Lawyer Giuliani: It would be crazy to let Trump be interviewed by Mueller's team
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani referred to the team of special counsel Robert Mueller on Tuesday night as a "kangaroo court" and suggested it would be malpractice for him to allow Trump to agree to an interview.
During an appearance on Fox News, Giuliani was asked by host Sean Hannity if he could "foresee any circumstances" under which he would allow Trump to appear before Mueller, who is investigating possible coordination between Russia and Trump's campaign in 2016.
"Do I look crazy?" Giuliani responded. "So far, you know, I still have all my senses, and I'm a heck of a lawyer. And I get drummed out of the profession if I did. I mean, the reality is, you don't put your client in a kangaroo court."
His comments come as Trump's legal team has been weighing whether to do a face-to-face interview with Mueller's team as part of his assessment of whether Trump has obstructed the investigation.
In recent days, Trump and his allies have stepped up their attacks on the probe, seizing on a report by the Justice Department's inspector general that castigated FBI officials for their conduct during the 2016 Hillary Clinton email investigation.
The report issued last week detailed how then-FBI Director James Comey and other senior law enforcement officials veered away from Justice Department practice, policies and professional standards in their handling of the Clinton case.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz found no evidence that specific investigative decisions in the case were affected by the political biases of some at the FBI, but Giuliani argued to Hannity that findings in the report undermined the Russia investigation.
"This is a witch hunt with no evidence, and nothing else, but a bunch of people who hate him, hate Republicans, hate anything that he stands for, and vowed to get him no matter what," Giuliani said.
Mueller is a Republican, as is Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who is overseeing the probe.
Trump and his allies have sought to highlight text messages documented in the report between two senior FBI officials, agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page, that reflected strong animus toward Trump, then the Republican presidential candidate.
Strzok had a leadership role on both the investigation of Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, as well as the probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
Mueller removed Strzok from the Russia probe shortly after discovering his politically charged anti-Trump text messages.
"I believe that this investigation is very, very close to being able to be thrown out," Giuliani said Tuesday night. "They're in jeopardy of having the whole thing thrown out on the fact that Strzok began it. Strzok began it with total bias. They have never produced any evidence of anything. And they're at the point where they have a group of people, undetermined yet how many, who have an equal amount of bias against the president."