On Wednesday, January 24, President Trump told reporters at the White House that he would be open to the idea of talking with Special Counsel Robert Mueller or his team about what he knows about Russian meddling during the 2016 presidential campaign. Mueller is the Special Counsel appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation because of his active involvement in the Trump campaign and transition team. Trump, however, said that he would still listen to his lawyers on whether on not speaking with Mueller is a good idea.
Mueller’s investigation has been capturing the headlines the past couple months, and particularly this week, as multiple news sources have confirmed that former FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have both been questioned and interviewed by the Special Counsel. Sources close to Mueller say that he may be starting to close in on Trump, through the guilty plea of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and the mysterious firing of Director Comey back in May of 2017. Whether the potential interview is under oath or not, Trump could be charged with perjury if he lied to Mueller, since lying to federal investigators is a federal crime.
Trump’s comments come just before Michael Schmidt and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times released a bombshell report saying that President Trump ordered the firing of Special Counsel Mueller in June of 2017, but backed down after the White House counsel threatened to quit if Trump did so. Trump’s rationale for the firing was based on conflicts of interest between Trump and Mueller; one is the fact that Trump interviewed Mueller to be interim FBI Director but ultimately didn’t choose him, and instead chose Christopher Wray as permanent director. The second “conflict of interest” was that Mueller had most recently worked for the same law firm that represented Trump’s son-in-law and current White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner.
Whether Trump talks to Mueller still remains to be seen, but with this latest New York Times report, fuel is being added to this fire daily, with no end in sight. While firing or wanting to fire a special counsel is not illegal, it was ultimately Richard Nixon’s decision to fire Special Counsel Archibald Cox that forced him to resign in August of 1974.
