Trump says he’ll likely shun Mueller Russia ‘witch-hunt’

U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview aired Sunday that he most likely would not sit for questioning by special counsel Robert Mueller.

“We’ve wasted enough time on this witch-hunt and the answer is, probably, we’re finished,” he said.

The president also claimed he had no idea his acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, viewed the Mueller investigation skeptically, despite reports the two had multiple conversations about the inquiry over the past year.

The comments from Trump were made during a wide-ranging interview with Chris Wallace, host of “Fox News Sunday,” who sat with the president at the White House last week.

Trump continued to be defensive about his abandoned trip to a U.S. military cemetery during a visit to Paris, originally blamed on bad weather.

And he said he declined to listen to an audio recording of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi being killed by people connected to the Saudi crown prince last month.

His comments on the Mueller investigation marked an apparent reversal from a year of claiming he was willing and eager to be interviewed by the special counsel, who is investigating unproven collusion between the president’s campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 election.

Instead, his lawyers are working on providing written answers to some, but not all, of Mueller’s questions this week.

Trump confirmed his team would probably not answer questions about whether he obstructed justice to thwart the investigation, flatly maintaining, “There was no obstruction of justice.”

It remains to be seen whether Whitaker would sign off on a subpoena for testimony from Trump if Mueller sought one.

Whitaker has made numerous public statements critical of the Russia investigation, displaying open hostility toward the special counsel on television and on social media.