Prez may ask grilling
TEAM TRUMP may ask special counsel Robert Mueller to interview the President as part of Mueller’s quickening Russia election probe, according to a report.
Those close to the President think that having Trump sit down with the former FBI director may speed along the process of an inquiry that has surrounded the administration with questions of potential campaign collusion with the Kremlin, Politico reported Thursday.
Former FBI Director James Comey told the Senate’s own Russia investigation panel that there was no probe into Trump personally when the President fired him in May.
Mueller (photo inset) was appointed shortly afterward to conduct an independent look into the Moscow effort to sway the election toward Trump, and The Washington Post reported in June that he is looking at the President himself.
Some legal experts suggest that Trump obstructed justice by allegedly asking Comey to drop an investigation into disgraced national security adviser Michael Flynn, who has become one of the centers of the Russia investigation since he was fired in February.
Though the President has threatened to fire Mueller and warned him against looking into his family’s finances, Trump has previously said he would be willing to sit down with prosecutors under oath.
The move that could have his statements picked apart for untruths about what he knew of the Kremlin campaign and when he knew it.
Bill Clinton was the last President to face questions under oath, during prosecutor Kenneth Starr’s look into the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
His 1998 testimony came after Starr subpoenaed Clinton, a first for a sitting President.
According to reports last month, Mueller has already begun interviewing members of Trump’s White House staff, though what they were asked is unclear.
Mueller has put heavy pressure on Trump associates outside the administration, with moves such as a predawn raid of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s Virginia home.
Manafort was told afterward that he will be indicted, sources told multiple outlets last month. Sources said at the time he is being investigated for tax and financial crimes. The bogus “Don’t Shoot Us” effort registered its website in March 2016 as the presidential campaign heated up. The group’s Facebook page was yanked after the social media company linked the site to the Kremlin’s Internet Research Agency, CNN said.