Trump Pals Fairly Certain He'll Lie Under Oath

And they're shitting their pants about it, reports Axios' Jonathan Swan under the terrific headline "White House Perjury Panic."

I can't overstate the level of anxiety among sources close to Trump after the president told the NYT's Maggie Haberman last week he was willing and eager to submit himself to a live interview under oath with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

What I'm hearing: One source, who knows Trump as well as anyone, told me he believes the president would be incapable of avoiding perjuring himself. "Trump doesn't deal in reality," the source said. "He creates his own reality and he actually believes it." (The president's attorney, Ty Cobb, did not respond to a request for comment.)

A number of people in the president's orbit have read this article by Bloomberg's Timothy O'Brien: "I've Watched Trump Testify Under Oath. It Isn't Pretty."

Among the many revelations in that piece: "Trump ultimately had to admit 30 times that he had lied over the years about all sorts of stuff: How much of a big Manhattan real estate project he owned; the price of one of his golf club memberships; the size of the Trump Organization; his wealth; his speaking fees; how many condos he had sold; his debts, and whether he borrowed money from his family to avoid going personally bankrupt. He also lied during the deposition about his business dealings with career criminals."

So, yeah. Anyone invested in Trump's presidency ought to be worried about him testifying under oath (which is why his attorneys will be tasked with wriggling him out of doing it).

Just one of the many complications of choosing to elect a compulsive liar as president, I guess!

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