Where are they getting these crazy demands?!?!?

Shifting Strategy, Trump’s Lawyers Set New Conditions for Mueller Interview

Mr. Giuliani appeared to be in part trying to shift responsibility onto the special counsel for the lengthy negotiations over an interview — and was most likely prolonging them himself.

“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,” Mr. Giuliani said in an interview. He urged the special counsel to wrap up his inquiry and write an investigative report. He said Mr. Trump’s lawyers planned to write their own summary of the case.

The lawyers also want evidence that the special counsel exhausted every other investigative measure before asking the president to answer questions, and that he is the only person who could provide them with the information they are seeking.

The gambit by Mr. Giuliani was the latest maneuver in an all-out assault by the president and his legal team in recent months to alter public opinion about the inquiry.

Actually the irony seems lost on the NY Times in this instance. The shifting of responsibility and new conditions are neither an actual "shifting" of anything, nor are they anything "new". The fact of the matter is that if any prosecutor or investigator wants to subpoena a witness, the burden is on them to satisfy the legal requirements of a subpoena.

Disapproval rising with Mueller probe

Those legal requirements (not too surprisingly) is that the request for a subpoena include the crime being alleged that witness can provide credible testimony to prove, as well as evidence that there is no other way that the prosecutor or investigator can gather that information.

Short of satisfying those two requirements, a Grand Jury or Judge is free to reject (and technically should) reject any subpoena brought before him. I tend to believe that a sitting Grand Jury will pretty much rubber stamp anything that comes across them, as evidenced by the fact that this Grand Jury voted to indict a company that doesn't actually exist. But any Grand Jury subpoena that Mueller might garner would be immediately appealed to a Federal Court, where a Judge much more knowledgeable would make that call.

So what Giuliani and the rest of the Trump legal team are doing is calling Mueller's subpoena bluff. They are effectively asking him to show them what he would eventually be required to show a Judge in order to validate any potential subpoena request. They are also signally that this will be their legal strategy for fighting a potential subpoena. A simply request that the subpoena follow the letter of the law so to speak.

If he can show them that he would have solid legal footing to garner a subpoena, then they would likely agree to sit for an interview. If he cannot show them that he has any real standing, then they will likely continue to reject the request for a real sit down and force him to make a choice about going to court.