Even Joe Biden is telling Trump to avoid an interview with Mueller
- Former Vice President Joe Biden echoed President Donald Trump's legal team said that he would advise Trump against agreeing to questioning by special counsel Robert Mueller.
- Biden said Trump has "difficulty with precision," opening him up to potentially lying under oath without even realizing it.
- A legal battle might emerge between Mueller's office and Trump's team if the president refuses to testify before the special counsel's panel.
Former Vice President Joe Biden joined President Donald Trump's legal team in telling Trump that it wouldn't be a good idea for him to sit down for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller, according to CNN.
"The President has some difficulty with precision," Biden told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Tuesday. "One of the things that I would worry about if I were his lawyer is him saying something that was just simply not true without him even planning to be disingenuous."
Biden has joined a growing chorus of voices including Trump's own staff that have cast doubt on the president's ability to answer questions truthfully in a potential hearing with Mueller, who is investigating Trump's potential ties to Russia during the campaign and his subsequent possible obstruction of justice in firing the FBI director.
Trump's lawyers have advised him against agreeing to an interview with Mueller, according to The New York Times. This has raised the possibility that the president would become engaged in a lengthy legal battle with Mueller's office over whether he should be required to testify under oath.
Fox News analyst and former judge Andrew Napolitano made similar statements to Biden's on Thursday.
"It only takes a couple of slip-ups for them to say to his lawyers, 'We caught your client in a lie, do you want us to present this to a grand jury and see if they indict him?'" Napolitano said on Fox.
Trump had previously volunteered to testify under oath, but the White House soon retracted the offer. Refusing to agree to an interview with Mueller potentially carries political risks, as it might expose Trump to accusations that he has something to hide. In addition to Trump, the Mueller probe is also hoping to interview former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and former spokesman for Trump's legal team Mark Corallo in the coming weeks.