Donald Trump once said President Bill Clinton should have exercised the Fifth Amendment when he was forced to testify before a grand jury.
Speaking to CNBC’s Chris Matthews in 1998, Trump discussed how, during the Kenneth Starr investigation into Whitewater, Clinton cronyism and Monica Lewinsky, the former president should have argued the cards were stacked against him and invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
“I’m not even sure that he shouldn’t have just gone in and taken the Fifth Amendment and said, ‘Look – I don’t get along with this man, Starr. He’s after me. He’s a Republican. He’s this, he’s that’ – and you know just taken the Fifth Amendment,” Trump told Matthews. “It’s a terrible thing for a President to take the Fifth Amendment, but he probably should have done it.”
Clinton’s testimony led Starr to argue the president had committed perjury, and The House of Representatives subsequently voted to impeach him, however he was acquitted after the Senate failed to get a majority vote.
The sitting US President’s previous remarks were highlighted in a tweet from Matt Drudge Thursday, as questions swirl whether FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team could force Trump to testify regarding the probe into Russian collusion.
Trump’s new lawyer Rudy Giuliani told Fox & Friends Thursday Mueller doesn’t have the evidence to subpoena the President.
“What they’re really trying to do is trap him into perjury, and we’re not suckers,” Giuliani told the program.
“This silly deposition is about a case in which he supposedly colluded with the Russians, but there’s no evidence,” he added.
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