Trump Under Oath Is a Different Person
Sometime soon, President Trump is likely to be deposed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team. Several outlets, beginning with NBC News on Monday, report that Trump’s lawyers are negotiating with Mueller about the president testifying under oath, though Mueller has made no formal request so far.
The specific importance of such a deposition is hard to judge. Trump’s lawyers, who also appear to have leaked word of the discussions to the press, present it as a sign that Mueller is nearing the end of his investigation, though they have previously, and incorrectly, predicted the probe would be over by Thanksgiving or Christmas. The New York Times reports that Mueller seems interested in topics that would imply more of a focus on the possibility of obstruction of justice than on collusion with Russia during the campaign, but that is somewhat speculative.
Assuming the deposition occurs, Trump will make political history as only the fifth sitting president to be deposed, following in the footsteps of Ulysses Grant, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and, most consequentially Bill Clinton—whose lie about not having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky in a 1998 deposition led to his impeachment. For Trump, however, depositions are familiar territory. In 2012, he said during a deposition that he had done more than 100 over the course of his career.
Transcripts, and in one case video, of depositions over the provide a fascinating look
