President Donald Trump said Friday that he is still willing to talk directly with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but worries that he would be treated unfairly.
Mueller is helming a wide-ranging probe into unproven allegations that the president’s campaign colluded with Russians to impact the result of the 2016 election.
‘I would love to speak, but I have to find that we’re going to be treated fairly,’ Trump said at the White House in response to a question from DailyMail.com.
‘I would love to speak because we’ve done nothing wrong,’ he said.
Trump said Mueller’s team of veteran investigators are ‘all Democrats. In some cases, they went to the Hillary Clinton celebration that turned out to be a funeral.’
President Donald Trump told DailyMail.com as he left the White House on Friday for the NRA convention in Dallas that he would only let Special Counsel Robert Mueller interview him if he thought he could get a fair shake
But Trump fears Mueller’s operation is biased against him: ‘We have 13 people and they’re all Democrats – real Democrats. Angry Democrats’
‘Nobody wants to speak more than me – in fact, against my lawyers, because most lawyers, they say “Never speak on anything,”‘ Trump explained
‘Bob Mueller worked for Obama for eight years,’ he said, painting the man who could soon be his inquisitor as a partisan.
Minutes later at Joint Base Andrews, Trump told a different gaggle of reporters before boarding Air Force One: ‘Bottom line is I want to talk to people in charge if they can prove that it’s a fair situation.’
‘The problem we have is, we have 13 people and they’re all Democrats – real Democrats. Angry Democrats. And that’s not a fair situation,’ Trump said.
At the White House, he told DailyMail.com that his legal team is counseling him against giving Mueller the chance to quiz him about his campaign’s links to Moscow, and about claims that he obstructed justice in 2017 by firing then-FBI Director James Comey.
The president’s two chief legal strategists in the matter, Rudy Giuliani (left) and Jay Sekulow (right), are both counseling him against agreeing to an interview with Mueller
Trump lawyer Ty Cobb has said recently that a Trump-Mueller sitdown was ‘certainly not off the table’ – a position that will likely evaporate when he departs in a week’s time
‘Nobody wants to speak more than me – in fact, against my lawyers, because most lawyers, they say “Never speak on anything,”‘ he explained.
But Trump concluded that he would only participate in a sit-down session if he believes ‘that we’re going to be treated fairly. Because everybody sees it now and it’s a pure witch hunt.’
‘If I thought it was fair, I would override my lawyer,’ he added.
Trump’s newest legal adviser, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has counseled him against consenting to a face-to-face with Mueller.
His departing lawyer Ty Cobb, however, had advised him to strike a more cooperative tone.
Cobb’s departure next week will elevate attorney Jay Sekulow, another lawyer who believes the president should keep the special counsel at arm’s length.