The Daily 202: Fox fallout shows why Trump's lawyers don't want Mueller to get an interview

By James Hohmann
National Political Correspondent
August 24 at 9:07 AM

THE BIG IDEA: Donald Trump’s own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, distanced himself from his client’s suggestion that it “almost ought to be illegal” for “flippers” to get plea deals in exchange for their testimony. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has kept a stiff upper lip as the president repeatedly sought to humiliate him over the past 18 months, forcefully responded as Trump questioned his loyalty. And even though he is unlikely to be indicted, many experts believe the president may have inadvertently confessed to breaking campaign finance law with his latest account of how he reimbursed Michael Cohen for paying hush money so two of his alleged mistresses would stay silent before the 2016 election.

That’s just some of the fallout from a 12-minute interview that aired Thursday morning on “Fox and Friends.” It was Trump’s most problematic sit-down since he told NBC’s Lester Holt last year that the Russia investigation was indeed on his mind when he fired James Comey as FBI director — undercutting the official explanation from White House officials.

It underscored why Trump’s legal team has become so determined to stop special counsel Bob Mueller from getting access, specifically demanding that questions related to potential obstruction of justice be off limits in any presidential interview. Trump’s lawyers say they’re afraid Mueller will lay “a perjury trap,” but the Fox hit shows Trump probably doesn’t need to be coaxed like some bear in the backwoods of Maine with doughnuts. He seems perfectly capable of entangling himself in potential legal and political jeopardy with little prompting.

“The headline bounty is proof that Trump is either too clueless or too reckless to understand the implications of his own words,” writes media critic Erik Wemple. “Whatever the case, his interviewer needs only to place topics before him, and let the tape roll.”

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