Donald Trump’s attorneys have been meeting with Special Counsel Robert Mueller in recent months — submitting documents and memos in the president’s defense to prove that he didn’t obstruct justice by firing former FBI chief James Comey, a report says.
Sources told the Wall Street Journal that his lawyers have also been calling into question Comey’s reliability as a potential witness, saying he is unfit to be called to the stand because he leaked to the press and was unreliable in congressional testimony.
The president’s lawyers have been sitting down with Mueller in an attempt to stop him from looking at the obstruction of justice side of his investigation, which was launched back in May after Trump fired Comey, the sources said.
The president’s legal team wants him to be exonerated, citing the memos they’ve submitted to Mueller.
One document reportedly laid out the case that Trump has the authority to hire and fire whoever he sees fit — and therefore didn’t obstruct justice when he gave Comey the boot.
It is unclear if Mueller accepted the arguments or took any action afterwards.
Experts told the Journal that reaching out to Mueller was something that many people expected would happen.
“Your objective is to find out what they’ve got and get ahead of them,” explained Julie Rose O’Sullivan, a Georgetown Law professor who was part of the investigative team that probed President Clinton during the Whitewater controversy.
“You definitely want some contact so you get a sense of where it’s going and take their temperature,” she said.