Trump Legal Team 'Hopes' to Decide on Mueller Interview by May 17

According to the Wall Street Journal—and brilliant legal mastermind Rudy Giuliani, the newest lawyer on the Trump legal roster—Trump’s lawyers are hoping to decide by May 17 on whether or not the president should do an interview with the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Aside from being the one-year anniversary of Mueller’s appointment, May 17 is an utterly arbitrary date. Trump can decide at any point whether or not he’ll do an interview with Mueller.

In March, Mueller’s office reportedly gave Trump’s legal team a list of potential interview topics, which cover Jeff Sessions’ recusal from the Russia probe, James Comey, Michael Flynn, and more. Last week, a list of questions that were reportedly drafted from that list of topics by Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow was leaked to the press.

Giuliani reportedly said in an interview with the Journal that “every day [the Trump legal team] swing a little different” on the subject of the interview. The Journal also said that Giuliani suggested that “recent developments” in the probe have made him “more leery” of advising Trump to do the interview.

“I’m not sure any client of mine has ever testified, and I sure as heck have benefited from ones who were dumb enough to do it,” Giuliani said.

As the Journal notes, Trump has recently lost two lawyers who were on opposite sides of the issue. John Dowd, an outside counsel who opposed the interview, resigned in March; White House lawyer Ty Cobb, on the other hand, was “more open” to an interview, but is leaving at the end of the month.

A fun little tidbit at the end of this story: Giuliani is applying for a security clearance at the White House right now, but that “legal experts say that given his consulting work on behalf of foreign countries in past years, including a Qatari state-owned oil company,” Giuliani could “struggle” to get clearance.