Robert Mueller persists despite Trump team’s claim clock has run out

Bloomberg

US Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation should have just gone out of business—or at least into a two-month deep freeze—if you take Rudy Giuliani’s word for it.
Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s lawyer, has maintained for weeks that September 1 was a deadline under Justice Department guidelines for Mueller to finish his Russia probe to avoid improperly affecting the midterm elections on November 6.
“I always thought that was the day to make some decision,” the former New York mayor said in an interview.
Mueller has responded to Giuliani’s ultimatums with the public silence he’s maintained ever since he was named in May 2017 to lead the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. But there’s no indication that the special counsel is going to abide by Giuliani’s clock, and there’s no law or clear policy requiring him to do so.
“The whole idea that there’s this magic deadline is ridiculous,” said Mimi Rocah, a former federal prosecutor for the US attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York.

Pivotal Test
A request to interview Trump from here on, Giuliani said, would clearly be out-of-bounds, a stance that could force Mueller to subpoena the president if he wants to question him. “If he subpoenas us he sets off a legal battle right before the election,” he said. “I don’t think he is going to do that.”
The weeks ahead could prove a pivotal test of Trump’s patience with Mueller—and with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Mueller was appointed after Sessions recused himself from the investigation, a move that Trump said was weak and left him unprotected.
In an interview with Bloomberg News, Trump said Sessions’s job is safe at least until after the November election. But he blasted the attorney general for failing to rein in what he called Mueller’s “illegal investigation.” Mueller is expected to thread a needle in the coming weeks, pushing ahead with investigative activities that he deems necessary while following a Justice Department policy that says overt acts aimed at influencing an election must be avoided.
At the very least, Mueller’s team is set to open its second-round prosecution against Paul Manafort, Trump’s already convicted former campaign chairman, later this month in Washington. And there’s no bar on bringing new indictments.
While prosecutors might hold off on taking public action against a candidate who’s on the ballot as election day approaches, they can be less cautious when dealing with someone who isn’t up for election—such as Trump, said Rocah.