President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani says in a new interview that any decision on a possible interview between the president and special counsel Robert Mueller would likely take place after Trump’s planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
In an interview with The Associated Press, the former New York City mayor calls the unprecedented summit between a North Korean leader and an American president “far more important” than the Mueller probe.
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“Several things delayed us, with the primary one being the whole situation with North Korea,” Giuliani said of discussions over whether Trump would meet with Mueller. “The president has been very busy. It really would be pretty close to impossible to spend the amount of time on it we would need.”
“I wouldn’t want to take his concentration off something far, far more important,” Giuliani added, saying it “would be silly to make a decision” on whether Trump would sit down with the special counsel’s office with so little preparation done.
“It would take a while and he’s focused on North Korea,” he says.
Giuliani also tells the AP that Mueller’s team, which is investigating possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, is nearly finished with its probe and likely views the president as the investigation’s final witness.
“As far we know, we’re basically the last witness,” he says.
“Our understanding is that he’s pretty much finished,” Giuliani said. “Doing more interviews would be inconsistent with what he’s indicated would be the timeframe of the investigation.”
The special counsel has given no indication of when his investigation might be resolved.
Giuliani made headlines this month with a whirlwind of media appearances during which he admitted, for the first time publicly, that Trump had reimbursed his lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels, an adult-film star who alleges a 2006 affair with the president.
The former mayor later clarified his remarks in subsequent interviews, claiming that Trump had learned about the payment only in recent months.
Mueller is reportedly investigating payments made to Cohen by a mix of companies and foreign individuals in the weeks and months following the 2016 election. The payments were made to Essential Consultants, the same company through which Cohen paid Daniels.