Leah Millis/Reuters
President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani claims that special counsel Robert Mueller told him he’d complete his obstruction of justice probe by Sept. 1. In an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Giuliani suggested that Mueller had set that deadline so the investigation wouldn’t interfere with November midterm elections. “September 1 was the date that Bob Mueller gave me back two months ago,” he said. “I thought he meant, well that’ll keep us clear of the election. And they did say something like they didn’t want to repeat some of the mistakes that Comey made,” he said, referring to former FBI director James Comey. Comey was widely criticized for announcing a renewed FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server just days before the 2016 presidential election. Trump’s legal team has sought to exclude questions pertaining to obstruction of justice from Mueller’s planned interview with the president, though it remains unclear whether the special counsel will agree to those terms. Giuliani also backtracked Sunday on his earlier response to allegations Trump had urged Comey to drop an investigation into former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn, claiming the president had never spoken to Comey about Flynn. Earlier, Giuliani told ABC News that Trump had discussed Flynn with Comey but had only asked if the then-FBI director could “give him a break.”