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WASHINGTON, U.S. – A new report has quoted sources as saying that the U.S. President Donald Trump has been urging his legal team to allow him to have a sit-down interview with special counsel Robert Mueller.

Mueller is investigating the alleged collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, to sway the 2016 U.S. Presidential election in Trump’s favor.

Mueller is also investigating a potentially dangerous line of investigation into possible obstruction of justice by the U.S. President – a claim that if proven, could lead to Trump’s impeachment. 

While all of Trump’s previous attorneys and legal teams have employed a more cooperating tone while dealing with Mueller’s probe – the President’s current top lawyer has turned that strategy on its head, resorting to a more confrontational and aggressive tone.

Rudy Giuliani has even publicly stated that Trump’s legal team was focussed on trying to discredit Mueller’s investigation, by waging a fierce information campaign against Mueller and his investigation into Russian meddling.

He pointed out that the strategy was aimed at delegitimizing the probe in the eyes of voters and lawmakers in Congress.

Recently, in an interview, Giuliani dismissed Mueller’s investigation by pointing out that collusion is “not a crime.”

He explained, “I have been sitting here looking in the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime. Collusion is not a crime.”

Giuliani said, “You start analyzing the crime — the hacking is the crime. The president didn’t hack. He didn’t pay them for hacking.”

The claim wasn’t new, as Trump himself told The New York Times in December 2017, “There is no collusion, and even if there was, it’s not a crime.”

Earlier this week, Giuliani revealed that Trump’s legal team has received a letter from Mueller regarding ground rules for a potential interview with the president. 

Giuliani said that Mueller’s team had earlier sent a proposal outlining interview parameters and that Trump’s legal team had responded, and said that Mueller’s most recent letter is a response to that.

However, Giuliani said that the Trump legal team is still considering how it will reply. 

He told reporters, “We haven’t stopped negotiating with them. The most recent letter – they sent us a proposal. We responded to their proposal. They took about 10 days and yesterday we got a letter back from them. And now we’re in the process of responding to their proposal.”

Soon after, a report in The New York Times stated that Trump has been urging his legal team to allow him to have a sit-down interview with Mueller, and that he believes it will give him the opportunity to clear his name.

The report stated that despite Trump’s legal team advising him against sitting down with Mueller, the president has renewed his push for such an interview.

Further, the report pointed out that Mueller has told Trump’s legal team that he would now be willing to accept some of the president’s answers to questions in writing.

Previously, reports have revealed that Mueller told Trump’s attorneys that he would subpoena the president to testify before a grand jury if he did not agree to an interview.

However, Giuliani reportedly responded to that by saying that Trump would not have to comply with a subpoena.

Mueller is looking to question Trump on possible obstruction of justice and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

However, the report quoted three people briefed on the matter as saying that Trump as saying that Trump believes that he can convince Mueller’s team that the special counsel’s Russia investigation is a “witch hunt” and that their inquiry is a deliberate attack against him.

Later in the week, Giuliani said that he didn’t want to give reporters the “hope” that the interview would happen.

He said that the president “has always been interested in testifying.” 

Adding that he, and the other attorneys representing the president, “have the most reservations.”

Giuliani said, “I don’t know if you find a lawyer on television that ever thinks their client should testify.”