Representing President Donald Trump is not exactly a lawyer’s dream job. True, there are high stakes and lots of media attention. The downsides, though, include a slippery client who barely listens to your advice and who might not pay your bill. That combination has forced Don McGahn, Ty Cobb, and John Dowd to make some unusual strategic choices in trying to fend off Robert Mueller. The most recent was sending the special counsel a written summary of the White House version of key events in the Russia saga. The gambit is intended to get Mueller to narrow the range of a possible Trump interview. And it’s almost certainly doomed.

“I think it’s the nuttiest thing I’ve ever heard,” says Solomon Wisenberg, the former federal prosecutor who elicited the damning “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” answer from President Bill Clinton during grand-jury testimony for the Monica Lewinsky investigation. “I’ve never heard of defense attorneys doing that. If you’re Mueller, it’s highly unlikely you accept what somebody’s lawyer said, when that somebody is a subject, at the least, of your investigation. It’s just so weird. It’s one thing to limit the amount of time, or the location. But when people are interviewed in a criminal investigation, they don’t get to narrow the topic.”

The chances are actually stronger that the maneuver will backfire, helping Mueller refine not just any questioning of the president but the investigation as a whole. “Mueller is learning a lot by letting this little passion play over Trump and the interview proceed,” says Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney for Alabama. “Because there’s a lot that’s being said publicly, there’s a lot that’s leaking out from the lawyers. Mueller’s team is learning a lot through this process about how the Trump team views the world. I’m sure Mueller is not drawing out the conversation just for that insight, but nonetheless it’s a highly informative process. You learn what the defense lawyers think is important, how they might react to certain questions, what they’re worried about.”

Negotiations will continue, and will likely grow more complicated with the addition of a new lawyer on the Trump side, Joe diGenova, who has suggested that the F.B.I. set out to frame Trump. Attorneys familiar with Mueller or his current team increasingly wager that this protracted dance over presidential testimony ends up in court—that Trump will eventually refuse to talk to the special counsel and that Mueller will subpoena him to appear. “I think Trump will chicken out, and his lawyers will dissuade him from talking because he’s not capable of doing the homework and staying on track,” says Peter Zeidenberg, who was part of the prosecution team in the Scooter Libby leak case and is now a defense attorney in Washington. “And I think his side has all kinds of issues. They don’t know what Michael Flynn has told the government. They don’t know exactly what James Comey and Andrew McCabe have said, what Rick Gates has overheard. Normally you tell your client, ‘Just tell the truth.’ But the truth could be really bad for Trump.”

It is possible, of course, that the special prosecutor decides Trump is unnecessary as a witness to the alleged crimes of others, and that the president himself has done nothing wrong. But if Mueller wants to question Trump, he has little incentive to cede ground on the scope. “There’s no reason to negotiate your ability to ask questions for the simple reason you can issue a subpoena and the defendant has to submit to any and all questions you want to ask,” Vance says. “These summaries are not helpful. What Mueller needs is to question the president, because the president’s state of mind is in question. You want to ask the president in person what he knew, and eyeball his appearance of truthfulness when he responds. If an interview matters to Mueller, he gets his interview, whether voluntarily or under the compulsion of a subpoena.”

The courts would be likely to expedite hearings, with the case reaching the Supreme Court probably inside of two months after Mueller files to compel Trump’s cooperation. Two things could short-circuit that scenario, however: Trump fires Mueller, setting off a different, explosive legal and political battle. The second possibility? Mueller doesn’t even ask for Trump’s testimony, because he’s made the president a target of the probe, rather than just a subject, as was Bill Clinton in the Ken Starr investigation. (Legal opinion is divided as to whether a sitting president can be indicted; Nixon, infamously, was known as an unindicted co-conspirator.) “I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that Mueller subpoenas Trump,” Zeidenberg says. “The thing no one talks about is, it’s virtually unheard of for prosecutors to subpoena targets to the grand jury. So if Trump is not subpoenaed, that might be a signal right there that Mueller thinks he’s got sufficient evidence and that they view Trump as a target.” The months-long buildup toward a melodramatic face-to-face confrontation between Trump and Mueller would vanish. But the second act curtain would fall with a compelling twist.