"Trump’s Lawyers Want Him to Refuse an Interview in Russia Inquiry."

The NYT reports, and I wonder which lawyers and why they (or someone in their confidence) would leak to the NYT that they were "concerned that the president, who has a history of making false statements and contradicting himself, could be charged with lying to investigators."

Did the NYT writers (Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman) insert their own "who has a history of making false statements and contradicting himself" or was that part of how their source described Trump's lawyers' concern? It makes a big difference! The lawyers could be concerned simply because prosecutors looking to charge somebody for something might lure the interviewee into useful contradictions and misstatements or because someone like Trump, with little experience listening carefully to questions and framing legalistic answers, risks too much.

Refusing to sit for an interview opens the possibility that Mr. Mueller will subpoena the president to testify before a grand jury, setting up a court fight that would drastically escalate the investigation and could be decided by the Supreme Court.

That sounds threatening — drastically escalate! — but I would love to see this issue wrestled into a sober, serious legal framework. I think a lot of people will be surprised at what they see, though most people — including most law-trained people — will obsess over the politics of the individual Justices. There will be a lot of talk of Nixon and his Watergate tapes, but Trump isn't withholding words already recorded. He's holding back what's in his mind. Even if Trump is in the end forced to submit to the interview, it's not the same as Nixon handing over the Watergate tapes. Nixon knew what was in the tapes and how it would hurt him. Trump would only need to begin to speak, and he could speak concisely and with circumspection (and the ability to resort to claims of executive privilege).

But John Dowd, the longtime Washington defense lawyer hired last summer to represent Mr. Trump in the investigation, wants to rebuff an interview request, as do Mr. Dowd’s deputy, Jay Sekulow, and many West Wing advisers, according to the four people. 

So "four people" are leaking about what Dowd and Sekulow supposedly think.

The lawyers and aides believe the special counsel might be unwilling to subpoena the president and set off a showdown with the White House that Mr. Mueller could lose in court. 

I'd love to see the showdown. Maybe if Mueller thinks he's likely to lose or doesn't want to expose his arguments about executive power to the scrutiny of the court, he'll simply accept Trump's refusal to do the interview. I can see why Dowd and Sekulow would predict that outcome. And I can see why they would want their opinion to leak to the NYT, though I'm pretty sure they didn't want to see that business about the "history of making false statements and contradicting himself."

One of the few voices arguing for cooperating with Mr. Mueller is Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer whom Mr. Trump also brought on to deal with Mr. Mueller’s investigation....  Since last summer, the White House has been in what Mr. Cobb has called “total cooperation mode.”...

There could be a strategy here of exhibiting "total cooperation mode" until you have to draw the line. Mueller may decide not to go where that line would be drawn, and so Trump can continue to look like the cooperative guy with nothing to hide. We see friendly, open Trump until he turns around and fights. If you don't want fighting Trump, then you have to cooperate with him. In this case, whatever the lawyers are saying in private, we don't get to see the resistant, closed-off Trump unless and until Mueller demands that Trump speak to him. And the NYT is performing the work of reminding us that that Trump is ready to emerge: Don't provoke him!

"The president’s lawyers are sleepwalking their client into the abyss. They are entirely unrealistic..."

"... about the enmity toward the president from the political establishment, and the established order."

Said Roger Stone, "an adviser to Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign whose dealings with WikiLeaks are under examination as part of the Russia investigation," quoted in the Wall Street Journal article "Trump’s Allies Urge Harder Line as Mueller Probe Heats Up/President’s legal team had predicted investigation would clear Trump by year’s end" (which was accessible to me without a subscription, arriving from Drudge).

[Trump's lawyer Ty] Cobb, who initially said the probe would wrap up by year’s end if not sooner, stands by his assessment that it’s moving at a reasonable clip. “I don’t see this dragging out,” he said in a recent interview. Mr. Mueller’s team is “committed to trying to help the country and get this done quickly,” Mr. Cobb said, adding, “I commend them for that. And we’re certainly determined to do it.”

That does sound sleepwalk-y, but there could be a strategy to talking like that when you really are quite aware of the dangers. There are many situations where X says "I'm sure Y will do the right thing," when X really believes Y will do something else but is trying to nudge Y to do what X wants or lulling Y into thinking that X is not prepared to fight aggressively if Y doesn't do what X wants.