Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s attorney, is again playing hardball with special counsel Robert Mueller — and it’s looking even less likely that the president will sit down for an interview with Mueller’s team. 
 
 The New York Times’s Michael Schmidt and Maggie Haberman reported that Giuliani is setting new terms for the interview: Mueller must show evidence that Donald Trump committed a crime and that an interview is necessary, or forget it. Trump’s legal team is also insisting Mueller prove that he exhausted all other avenues and that he has no choice but to interview the president. 
 
 “If they can come to us and show us the basis and that it’s legitimate and that they have uncovered something, we can go from there and assess their objectivity,” Giuliani told the Times. 
 
 The prospect of sitting for an interview with Robert Mueller has gotten increasingly fraught since the president shook up his legal team months ago, bringing on former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Emmet T. Flood, who represented Bill Clinton in his impeachment. Both embarked on a more combative, aggressive approach toward the Russia investigation compared to the more cooperative stance favored by his former attorneys. 
 
 Giuliani has shifted the terms (and deadline) of a Trump-Mueller interview more than once since joining Trump’s legal team. Giuliani had said in May that he was working with the special counsel to narrow the scope of the investigation, and that no decisions would be made until after Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The summit came and went, and the deadline was pushed to July 4. 
 
 The delays on the Mueller interview are part of Team Trump’s attempts to sway public opinion 
 
 As the back-and-forth over the Trump interview continues, Giuliani is waging a PR campaign against Mueller and the investigation that’s been echoed in his boss’s Twitter feed. According to the latest Times report, this seems to be the crux of the strategy — delay until the midterms and damage the investigation’s credibility. (It may also force Mueller to subpoena Trump — which will set off a protracted, likely messy, court battle.) 
 
 Trump’s lawyers have suggested Mueller will abide by Department of Justice guidance that says a sitting president can’t be indicted — which would mean Mueller’s most likely option is a written report, which could make its way to Congress. If such a report is damning against Trump, and if Democrats retake the House of Representatives in the fall, the chance of impeachment increases. But if the public can be convinced, that, as the president says, that the special counsel’s investigation is a total “WITCH HUNT,” lawmakers might be more leery of taking on the president. 
 
 “Nobody is going to consider impeachment if public opinion has concluded this is an unfair investigation, and that’s why public opinion is so important,” Giuliani told the Times. 
 
 Giuliani, Trump, and his allies in Congress have done their best to discredit Mueller. Giuliani played up the debunked “Spygate” conspiracy — that the FBI planted a spy on the Trump campaign — admitting last month that the drama was conjured up “for public opinion.” The House of Representatives is waging war against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — Mueller’s boss — sanctioning him on the House floor for failing to turn over requested documented about the investigation. 
 
 The war against Mueller has shown some signs of working. A Politico/Morning Consult poll in June put Mueller’s favorability at just 32 percent. More people — 36 percent — had an unfavorable opinion of Mueller than a favorable one. Opinions have dipped sharply among Republicans, too: According to that same poll, 53 percent of Republicans viewed Mueller unfavorably, up from 27 percent in July 2017, according to Politico. 
 
 The Times also pointed to a Washington Post-Schar School poll, published Friday, that put Mueller’s approval rating at just 49 percent among all adults — though it reached 52 percent among registered voters. A total of 45 percent of adults disapproved of Mueller. ||||| Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team told President Trump’s lawyers recently that prosecutors do not believe they can charge a sitting president with a crime under Justice Department guidelines, Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani said Wednesday. 
 
 The special counsel’s conclusion signals that it would be left to Congress to address any finding of wrongdoing by Trump in the investigation. Mueller’s team is scrutinizing Russian interference in the 2016 election, whether the Russians coordinated with any Trump associates and whether the president has sought to thwart the probe. 
 
 Mueller indicated in a meeting a few weeks ago that he concurred with the view that a sitting president cannot be indicted under past legal opinions issued by the Justice Department, Giuliani told The Washington Post. 
 
 Giuliani said that Mueller at first tried to be “coy” when Giuliani asked the special counsel for his stance on the issue. One of Mueller’s aides responded that the special counsel would follow Justice Department guidelines, he said. 
 
 A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment. 
 
 Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney who prosecuted mobsters in New York, said Mueller appeared displeased when the deputy spoke up. He compared the special counsel’s reaction to that of Vito Corleone, the mob boss that Marlon Brando played in the movie “The Godfather.” 
 
 “He didn’t seem to want to give the answer,” Giuliani said. “It reminded me of that scene in ‘The Godfather,’ with Sonny and the Godfather, where he said, ‘Oh, you’re going to take care of us? We can take care of ourselves.’ One of his assistants broke in and said, ‘Well of course, we’re bound by Justice Department policies.’ Mueller looked at him like, ‘Don’t interrupt me.’ ” 
 
 Giuliani said the issue was left as an “open question” during the meeting, but that a deputy to Mueller followed up a few days later in a phone call to clarify that the special counsel plans to follow the Justice Department guidelines. 
 
 The special counsel’s stance was first reported by CNN. 
 
 Most legal experts have assumed Mueller would follow the Justice Department’s guidelines that bar such a prosecution. The two opinions, written in 1974 and in 2000, argue that a president must be immune from criminal prosecution from his executive branch while in office. If a president had to consider the possibility of criminal jeopardy, the opinions argue, he might be dangerously constrained in making decisions that are critical to his role as commander in chief. 
 
 The opinions were written by the department’s Office of Legal Counsel amid investigations into President Richard M. Nixon and President Bill Clinton. 
 
 The Constitution provides another remedy for wrongdoing, the opinions conclude: Congress can hold a president accountable with impeachment proceedings, if necessary. 
 
 Under special counsel regulations, Mueller is required to report his conclusions confidentially to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who has the authority to decide whether to release the information publicly. 
 
 Last month, The Post reported that Mueller had told Trump’s lawyers in March that he needed to interview the president to finalize a report about Trump’s actions while in office and potential obstruction of justice. 
 
 [Mueller told Trump’s attorneys the president remains under investigation but is not currently a criminal target] 
 
 The chances of such a sit-down appears to be narrowing. 
 
 On Wednesday, Giuliani described the standoff between the two sides over a presidential interview as increasingly tense. Mueller’s office is seeking to sit down with Trump for 2 1/2 hours, he said. 
 
 The president is “probably the most enthusiastic about doing it,” Giuliani said, but Trump’s lawyers are not encouraging the idea. 
 
 “You know what’s changing our strategy? Their lack of responsiveness,” Giuliani added. “We’ve written five letters to them, two while I’ve been there and three before. They haven’t responded to any of them. They don’t want to respond to any of them.” 
 
 The letters are memos outlining the testimony and documents that Trump’s lawyers believe answer the questions Mueller has for the president, as well as requests for details about the questions and information about the scope of Mueller’s mandate, he said. The most recent was sent May 10. 
 
 Giuliani said he doesn’t see why Mueller needs to question the president at all. 
 
 “He’s got everything,” he said. “Look, our position has changed a little bit in that we’ve gone through all of the documents now. They lay out a complete picture of what happened. If you don’t want to accept reality, then we’re walking into never-never land.” ||||| (CNN) Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has informed President Donald Trump's attorneys that they have concluded that they cannot indict a sitting president, according to the President's lawyer. 
 
 "All they get to do is write a report," Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani told CNN. "They can't indict. At least they acknowledged that to us after some battling, they acknowledged that to us." 
 
 That conclusion is likely based on longstanding Justice Department guidelines. It is not about any assessment of the evidence Mueller's team has compiled. 
 
 A lack of an indictment would not necessarily mean the President is in the clear. Mueller could issue a report making referrals or recommendations to the House of Representatives. 
 
 The inability to indict a sitting president has been the position of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department since the Nixon administration and reaffirmed in the Clinton administration, but it has never been tested in court. 
 
 It had been an open question whether, if investigators found potentially criminal evidence against Trump, Mueller's team would try to challenge those Justice Department guidelines. 
 
 CNN reached out to Mueller's team. They declined to comment. 
 
 Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein publicly discussed the issue earlier this month at an event held by the Freedom Forum Institute. He was asked if a sitting president can be indicted. 
 
 "I'm not going to answer this in the context of any current matters, so you shouldn't draw any inference about it," Rosenstein said. "But the Department of Justice has in the past, when the issue arose, has opined that a sitting President cannot be indicted. There's been a lot of speculation in the media about this, I just don't have anything more to say about it." Rosenstein oversees the special counsel probe. 
 
 Giuliani tells CNN the special counsel's team has decided that "they have to follow the Justice Department rules." 
 
 "The Justice Department memos going back to before Nixon say that you cannot indict a sitting president, you have to impeach him. Now there was a little time in which there was some dispute about that, but they acknowledged to us orally that they understand that they can't violate the Justice Department rules," Giuliani said. 
 
 "We think it's bigger than that. We think it's a constitutional rule, but I don't think you're ever going to confront that because nobody's ever going to indict a sitting president. So, what does that leave them with? That leaves them with writing a report," said Giuliani. 
 
 It would then be up to the House of Representatives to decide what to do about with the special counsel's report -- and whether to pursue articles of impeachment. 
 
 Giuliani also said that he is using the one-year anniversary of the Mueller probe, which is Thursday, to push the special counsel to disclose how much money is being spent, and to actively begin negotiating with Trump's legal team over any Trump interview Mueller is seeking. 
 
 "Do you really need an interview?" Giuliani said he wants Mueller's team to answer. 
 
 "You've got all the facts. You've got all the documents. You've got all the explanations. We're happy to tell you they're not going to change." 
 
 The legal team put the question of indictment directly to Mueller -- and they were not surprised by his answer -- as part of a strategy to deal with the issue of a subpoena to the President should he decide not to testify, according to a source familiar with the Trump legal team's thinking. 
 
 The reason it's important, this source said, is that under their view of the law the special counsel's team would have to show they need the President's testimony to investigate a crime of great significance. The President's team would then argue that if you can't indict the President for a charge like obstruction, then there is "no crime to justify the subpoena." 
 
 Since questions about obstruction involve asking about the President's state of mind, his legal team would ask why those questions are warranted if he can't be prosecuted. 
 
 The President's legal team believes that in order to justify an interview, then it has to be his crime and not somebody else's, this source said. 
 
 In addition, the source said the Mueller team would also have to make the case they can't get the information anywhere else and Trump's legal team would argue that Mueller's team has millions of documents and enough information. 
 
 Update: This story has been updated with more detail about why Trump's legal team posed the indictment question to Mueller.
– The White House is changing its posture in the ongoing saga of the Mueller probe. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani tells the New York Times that the president will sit for an interview with Robert Mueller only if the special counsel can show evidence that Trump committed a crime. "If they can come to us and show us the basis and that it’s legitimate and that they have uncovered something, we can go from there," Giuliani said, acknowledging that it's not likely Mueller will agree to the new conditions. However, as the Times notes, it remains possible for Mueller to subpoena Trump in his bid to uncover any links between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign. According to Vox, Giuliani's move is part of team Trump's increasingly combative stance against the special counsel. Part of that strategy involves a PR campaign to paint the investigation as an unfair assault on Trump. Should such a campaign successfully sway public opinion, congressional action against Trump would be less likely should Mueller's report cast the president in an unflattering—or, possibly, impeachment-worthy—light. To the Times, Giuliani openly admits this strategy. “Nobody is going to consider impeachment if public opinion has concluded this is an unfair investigation, and that’s why public opinion is so important,” he said.