According to Michael Zeldin, a former special assistant to now-special counsel Robert Mueller during the latter’s time at the Justice Department, the biggest takeaway from news that Attorney General Jeff Sessions may have lied under oath to Congress goes all the way to the top.

“What stands out most is, the president of the United States cannot go under oath,” Zeldin told his co-panelists on Thursday’s episode of CNN’s AC360. “His disconnected stories over the course of these months that we’ve been following [the Russia investigation] create for him the possibility of a perjury trap if he goes under oath oath. And I think [Trump’s lawyers] Ty Cobb and John Dowd know this.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Mueller’s former assistant conceded that President Donald Trump won’t be able to avoid testifying under oath, but that if his lawyers are savvy, they’ll stall that testimony as much as possible until they can “create a narrative that hopefully he can stick to.”

When press by host Anderson Cooper to explain his statement, Zeldin expanded.

“He can’t tell the truth, that’s what I’m saying,” Zeldin explained. “I think he can’t go under oath from a legal jeopardy standpoint because he doesn’t tell the truth with respect to what he knows.”

Watch the former Justice Department official explain why Trump’s potential future testimony is already fraught below, via CNN.