President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani walked back his comments that the president would not answer questions from the special counsel about obstruction of justice — saying a final decision has not been reached, according to reports.
Giuliani on Thursday told the Associated Press that Trump would not answer any questions from Robert Mueller — in person or in writing — about obstruction related to Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
“That’s a no-go. That is not going to happen,” the former New York City mayor said. “There will be no questions at all on obstruction.”
But in a subsequent interview on NBC, he said those questions are “not ruled in or out.”
“We have said we would agree to written questions on Russia after we review questions but no further commitment on interviews. After we finish this, we will assess it with no agreement to any post-presidential questions,” Giuliani told NBC News.
Giuliani added that for now, there’s “no commitment on obstruction which are post-presidential matters,” but said the legal team would agree to talk “after the collusion/pre-presidential questions are over.”
In a separate interview with Politico about obstruction questions, Giuliani said: “We’re very opposed to that [but] we’re not closing it off 100 percent.
“We don’t want to mislead [prosecutors] and have them think it’s easy, but we have also not closed our mind to it,” he added.
Giuliani also told Politico that a deal is near for the president to provide written responses to Mueller’s questions.
“I think we’re pretty close to an agreement, maybe this weekend,” he told the news outlet Thursday night about the likelihood of an agreement for written answers about alleged collusion between the campaign and Russia before Trump took office.
Asked about the AP report, Giuliani told Politico: “It’s a little complicated. I think the AP got it a little wrong, but it could be my fault and I didn’t describe it right.”
Jay Sekulow, another Trump attorney, also stressed that discussions with Mueller’s office are still in progress.
“I don’t discuss our ongoing negotiations with the special counsel’s office,” he said.
Despite calling Mueller’s sweeping probe a “witch hunt,” Trump has repeatedly said he wants to answer any and all of his questions.