Bruce Green was quoted in The Atlantic about the recently leaked questions in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation.
A leaked list of potential questions Special Counsel Robert Mueller wants to ask President Trump in a potential interview highlights the risks faced by both Trump and his inner circle.
“The odds are so huge that the president will make a misstatement or an implausible statement that looks like a lie, or that he will answer evasively in a manner that looks like an effort to obstruct the investigation, or that he will give testimony that, together with other evidence, is incriminating,” said Bruce Green, a former associate special counsel in the Iran-Contra affair and a law professor at Fordham. “Even a careful, deliberate witness would be at risk here, and there is no reason to think that the president will be a careful, deliberate witness.”
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Mueller is unlikely to indict Trump, given Justice Department regulations that state a sitting president can’t be prosecuted. But depending on what he uncovers, he might provide a report to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the investigation, that concludes Trump obstructed justice. None of the former prosecutors I spoke to said that, were they on Trump’s legal team, they would recommend that the president submit to an interview with Mueller.
“Perhaps from a political perspective, there’s a benefit for the president if he testifies rather than taking the Fifth or being perceived to be doing so,” Green said. “In the court of public opinion, silence is incriminating. But from a criminal prosecution perspective, testifying is all risk and no reward.”
Asked whether he would recommend sitting down with Mueller if Trump were his client, Green said, “not in a million years.”