President Donald Trump is not going to pardon anyone in the Russia special counsel investigation, personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said Friday, but "he is not obviously going to give up his right to pardon if a miscarriage of justice is presented."
"Let me make it clear right now," Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, told Chris Cuomo on CNN. "He is not going to pardon anybody in this investigation.
"But he is not obviously going to give up his right to pardon if a miscarriage of justice is presented.
"He's not saying he absolutely, definitively will not," he added. "He might as well give up being president."
Giuliani, 74, a former federal prosecutor, came under fire Friday after telling The New York Daily News that the Moscow probe could get "cleaned up" with pardons from President Trump.
His comments came within hours after former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was remanded to jail after a federal judge revoked his bail after an indictment last week on witness tampering by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Giuliani told Cuomo that he only discussed pardons because he was asked by the Daily News.
"My advice to the president as his lawyer, not as a government lawyer, is no pardons," he said.
"It would completely change the momentum that we have right now — because it's very strong right now.
"You can see the polls moving in the president's favor and against Mueller."
In addition, Giuliani said that Trump's legal team would decide by July 4 whether to sit for a Mueller interview, with the goal of having a report out before the November midterm elections.
"Then, there's enough time to do everything — and given the Horowitz report, I think we understand that we don't want to get into manipulating the election.
"We don't. They shouldn't, meaning the special counsel.
"So, if we can decide by July 4 if we're going to do an interview, they can do it within two or three weeks of that.
"Write their report, and then we move onto fighting it out," he said. "If we don't do an interview, they can decide if they want to fight us on it or just do their report."
Regarding Thursday's report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Giuliani told Cuomo that the document proved that Mueller hired prosecutors who were biased against Trump.
"It creates for us an issue that doesn't have to exist, which is can they be fair?" he said. "Can they be unbiased?
"Can they view the evidence in the light that's the most fair?"
Giuliani pointed to texts exchanged by FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that Horowitz cited as an example of bias against the Republican presidential candidate.
In the exchange, dated Aug. 8, 2016, Page questioned whether Trump would win the White House.
Strzok replied: "No. No he's not. We'll stop it."
Horowitz said five FBI officials who were found to have expressed hostility toward Trump were referred for possible disciplinary action.
"Mueller hired people like him," Giuliani told Cuomo.
In addition, as many as seven lawyers on Mueller's team have donated a total of $60,787.77 to Democrat Hillary Clinton and other party candidates.
"I believe that Bob made one critical error that's going to doom his investigation, no matter what he writes," Giuliani said. "Hiring those people. I would have never done it.
"What he did find," he continued, referring to Horowitz, "and I agree, is that the Russia collusion investigation with Strzok, Page and other agents was filled with people who were anti-Trump."
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