Trump attacks leak of Mueller investigation questions
WASHINGTON • Donald Trump has condemned as “disgraceful” a leak of dozens of questions Robert Mueller wants to ask the president in a face-to-face interview.
Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, submitted more than 40 proposed questions to Trump’s lawyers. The questions indicated he wants to focus on whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice by blocking the inquiry, and any links between his campaign and Russia.
Mueller’s team read the inquiries over the telephone to Trump’s lawyers who compiled them into a list. That list was leaked to The New York Times by “a person outside Mr. Trump’s legal team,” the newspaper said.
Trump, writing on Twitter, said: “So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were ‘leaked’ to the media. No questions on Collusion. Oh, I see ... you have a made up, phony crime, Collusion, that never existed, and an investigation begun with illegally leaked classified information. Nice!” Trump later added: “It would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened.”
The president’s assertion that there were “no questions on collusion” was correct in the sense that the word “collusion” was not used. However, the list did suggest Mueller is looking into whether Trump’s campaign coordinated in any way with the Kremlin, and whether he knew about it.
John Dean, Richard Nixon’s White House counsel, and star witness in the Watergate investigation, said whoever leaked the questions could be obstructing justice. He said: “It could be obstruction just to have released these questions ... the tipping off of witnesses in advance to what the question was going to be.”
Many of the questions were predictable, based on events that are already publicly known, but one appeared to stem from as yet unreleased information. In it Mueller asked: “What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?”
There has been no public suggestion so far of alleged outreach by Manafort, who has been separately charged by Mueller with financial crimes.
Mueller’s questions gave no indication whether Trump is an official suspect in his year-long probe, which has been shrouded in secrecy.