The most plausible explanation for the concession actually indicates the weakness of Trump’s position. Remember the backstory here: The Times also reported that Mark Corallo, the former spokesman for Trump’s legal team, resigned over Trump’s role in this statement. Corallo was preparing to tell Mueller that in a private conference call with Trump himself, his communications director Hope Hicks had said Donald Trump Jr.’s emails “will never get out,” leaving him concerned that Donald Trump’s team was engaged in a coverup. Corallo has certainly talked to Mueller about this episode, as have others involved in it.


Jed Shugerman, a professor at the Fordham University School of Law, told me that this concession by Trump’s lawyers likely meant they had no choice — Mueller has established exactly what happened. They are conceding this point as part of an effort to justify not sitting for an interview — they’re claiming Trump already admits he dictated this statement, so Mueller doesn’t need to ask about it.

“The admission is so surprising that it suggests they may be trying to avoid a subpoena by basically conceding a key factual point,” Shugerman said. “They see a live interview with Mueller’s team as more dangerous than the damage from admitting that Trump dictated this statement.”

But as former White House counsel Bob Bauer added to me, their concession of Trump’s role in dictating the statement actually strengthens the rationale for insisting on further questioning. “This raises all sorts of questions as to why he did it,” Bauer told me. “What did you know at the time you wrote it? Who did you know it from? And why did you write something we now know wasn’t true? The moment that they concede that they lied about [Trump’s role], the argument for the interview is strengthened, not weakened.”