One somehow under-discussed element of the Mueller Report is that Donald Trump, American president, refused to sit for an interview with the special counsel. Whether he would agree to be questioned under oath was a running plot line as the investigation wore on. His attorneys would semi-frequently state that they were against it because they'd be powerless to stop our large adult president from making a mess. Video of his depositions from previous lawsuits support this fear: Trump rambles and raves, spouting nonsense like it's a ChopperTalk. While suing an ex-biographer for supposedly underrating his wealth, our president once testified his net worth fluctuates with how he's feeling. No wonder Rudy Giuliani came out and said his client would sit for an interview with Mueller "over my dead body."

The president's lawyers did submit some written responses to questions on collusion, though even those featured plenty of I do not recalls. But they refused, as a blanket matter, to answer any questions about obstruction—even in writing. This is because, as the Mueller Report revealed—and more than 1,000 former federal prosecutors have attested—the president repeatedly committed obstruction of justice and would have been forced to lie about some or all the incidents should he have answered questions about them. ABC News' George Stephanopoulos zeroed in on this issue during a segment of his interview with the president that aired Friday morning.

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.@ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: Pres. Trump tells @GStephanopoulos he never suggested firing special counsel Robert Mueller—and what ex-White House counsel Don McGahn told Mueller “doesn’t matter". https://t.co/UVWL3BjvLg pic.twitter.com/EwKGTnQ0kJ — Good Morning America (@GMA) June 14, 2019

First of all, Stephanopoulos's framing of what Kamala Harris said is incorrect. The Democratic candidate did not say that she would pursue charges against Trump—that's something he might say as a political leader who has no regard for an independent system of justice. (During a presidential debate, he declared that if elected, he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate his opponent, Hillary Clinton.) Here's what Harris actually said when asked if the Justice Department under her administration would pursue criminal obstruction-of-justice charges against Donald Trump:

"I believe that they would have no choice and that they should, yes."

This still presents some problems for the rule of law—would-be presidents should not speculate on whether the Justice Department under their regime would indict a political opponent—but what Stephanopoulos suggested she said is far worse.

Robert Mueller’s team sought an interview with the president but settled for written responses to questions exclusively on collusion. Alex Wong Getty Images

Anyway, then it was on to an avalanche of Trumpian lies and distortions. After tagging Harris's poll numbers—which aren't actually that bad—and using a racist slur in reference to Elizabeth Warren, Trump went into caveman defense mode. "There was no evidence of crime," he said, despite the voluminous evidence he obstructed justice and a huge number of contacts between his campaign and the Russians. That includes the correspondence between his campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and his longtime associate Konstanin Kilimnik, who has been linked to Russian intelligence and whom Manafort shared regular updates on the campaign, including internal polling data on key battleground states. The special counsel found insufficient evidence to charge there was a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, but that doesn't mean there was zero evidence.

But then we really got into the wildlands. Stephanopoulos focused on perhaps the most blatant example of obstruction, when Trump pressured his White House Counsel, Don McGahn, to fire Mueller. Trump flatly denied this on ABC News and suggested McGahn lied under oath to the special counsel. (Remember: Trump refused to answer questions on obstruction under oath, whereas McGahn did.) Trump said McGahn committed perjury, a felony that landed a bunch of other Trump associates in prison, to "make himself look like a good lawyer." What? He perjured himself to prove he's The Best Attorney? Then Trump rolled out the zombie lie that Mueller was "conflicted."



The real question, though—which Stephanopoulos identified—is why, if Trump did nothing wrong and his ex-counsel lied to the special counsel by saying he did, did Trump then refuse to talk to the special counsel? Why will he only deny these obstruction charges to the media? And that's where you get that loooong pause. Let's revisit that:

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Watch what happens when @GStephanopoulos repeatedly presses Trump on why he refused to answer questions about obstruction. pic.twitter.com/YKJ37i4NXH — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 14, 2019

"Because...[longest pause in Trumpian speech ever recorded]...They were looking to get us for lies, for slight misstatements. I looked what happened to people, and it was very unfair."

Here Trump is referencing his many campaign associates who lied under oath to federal authorities, which is somehow supposed to bolster his case. But again, if Trump did not instruct McGahn to obstruct justice, why wouldn't he just tell Mueller that? It wouldn't be a lie. It's silly now that we know just how cautious Mueller was in his report, but let's say Trump was afraid of misspeaking and having Mueller nitpick some small inconsistency to destroy him. Why not answer the obstruction questions in writing, with the aid of legal counsel, to insure there were no slip-ups? The answer is that they could not answer the obstruction questions without either confirming McGahn's account or lying under oath. So, Trump's denials will forever be confined to television.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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