Rudy Giuliani, the US president's personal lawyer, has told Sky News that Robert Mueller's team is a "bunch of unethical slimy prosecutors who are part of Hillary Clinton's love machine and that hate Donald Trump."

In a UK exclusive, the former mayor of New York City hit out at a New York Times report that claimed some in the special counsel's office believe Attorney General William Barr undersold their damaging conclusions about obstruction of justice.

"They can't point to about obstruction." he told me, "Instead they say, it was far more damaging. You're a good reporter. First question I'd ask is 'give me an example'."

Rudy Giuliani interview in full

Image: Special counsel Robert Mueller ran the Russia investigation

Mr Giuliani did concede that, despite the president's combative proclamations about Mr Mueller's so-called "witch hunt", he did feel like a weight had been lifted.

He revealed that the two men went for lunch the day after the report was released and Mr Trump told him: "I didn't realise it but I feel a burden has been lifted."


Mr Guiliani went on to say: "He felt maybe for the first time in his life like he was a victim... and what hurt him the most was all the people that they brought into the investigation. People who they made bankrupt.

"Some of the young people that came to Washington with these great ideas of how are they were going to change America."

Image: George Papadopoulos was jailed for lying to the FBI

He cited 29-year-old George Papadopoulos as one of those men, who was sentenced to 14 days for lying to the FBI.

Papadopoulos' team has written to the White House requesting a presidential pardon.

Mr Giuliani told me the president has the ability to grant pardons immediately, "but he's not going to exercise that power right now". It is not something they're ruling out though for the future.

The Russia investigation may be complete, but the 400-page report still hasn't been released.

This week, the president's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen sought to delay his surrender to prison and reduce his sentence by claiming he had 14 million files that could help prove Mr Trump conspired to collude with Russia.

Image: Michael Cohen was labelled 'the biggest liar we’ve seen in the past four or five years'

Mr Giuliani dismissed the allegations with a chuckle, stating: "I'm not worried about the biggest liar we've seen in the past four or five years.

"I mean what Congress should be doing if they're honest is be recommending him for perjury prosecution."

That won't sit well with Democrats who are desperate to see more evidence and have claimed that the Mr Barr showed bias in his four-page summary.

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Mr Giuliani rejected this depiction, describing the attorney general as "a man of unblemished reputation. He's a great lawyer".

I asked him if he supported the full report being released including the president's written answers. He responded: "I am in favour of releasing every single thing that they want to release. I have no problem with any of it.

"I can't make that judgment because the attorney general gets to decide on grand jury material, classification on damage to reputation and interference in ongoing investigations."

Image: Attorney General William Barr is expected to release the full Mueller report

After a turbulent time in office, I asked Mr Giuliani, as a long-time friend of the president, if he'd wrestled with being in the job.

He recalled a time when he visited Mr Trump at Christmas during the shutdown, which left 800,000 people without pay cheques for two month.

Image: Mr Trump regretted not being able to play golf over Christmas because of the shutdown

He said the president was frustrated that he couldn't play golf and visit his family in Florida. But he found some light in the situation, telling his lawyer: "If you have to be locked up, this has to be the most beautiful prison in the world".

That "prison", he firmly believes, will likely be home to Mr Trump for another term.