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US President Donald Trump said he "probably" would not stand for a personal meeting with special advocate Robert Mueller, who was looking at the links between his 2016 campaign and Russia, suggesting that his written answers to the prosecutor's questions would constitute his final answer.
Trump told Sunday's news presenter, Chris Wallace, that in recent days he had given "very comprehensive answers to questions that I should not have asked myself." is probably the end. "
In a White House interview on Friday and rebroadcast Sunday, Trump said his lawyers were answering Mueller's two dozen questions, but that, "They write what I told them." It did not matter. "
Trump's lawyers are expected to hand in his written answers in the coming days, although Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said last week that some questions posed "more problems for us legally than others." " Giuliani called some of these questions "useless". were "possible pitfalls" and that "we might consider some irrelevant".
The questions focused on the events leading up to the November 2016 national elections, not on the two or more months that Trump was president-elect, or on events during the Trump presidency, where Mueller investigates whether Trump had obstructed justice by attempting to foil the investigation.
In the interview with Fox, Trump reiterated his long-standing attacks against the 18-month-old Mueller investigation.
"It's a scam," he said. "There was no collusion."
A day after the national congressional elections held earlier this month, Trump overturned Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had long drawn Trump's anger for being removed from the surveillance of the investigation. Mueller. Trump replaced him with an acting Attorney General, Matthew Whitaker, who, prior to becoming a Sessions Chief of Staff more than a year ago, had hinted that a substitute attorney, as it currently stands, could reduce funding for the Mueller probe so that it "creaks almost at a standstill."
Trump said he was unaware of Whitaker's comments on CNN television opposing the Mueller investigation before appointing him senior law enforcement official in the country, but said dismissed concerns that he would deal with Mueller's investigation.
"He was right," Trump said. "He said that there was no collusion, he is right."
But Trump would leave Whitaker, whom he would call a "smart politician," in overseeing Mueller's investigation, after Sessions delegated Mueller's supervision to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
"It will be his," Trump said of Whitaker. "I really believe that he will do what is right."
Some legislators, Democrats and Republicans, demanded that Whitaker, because of his previous attacks on the Mueller investigation, recuse himself, just like Sessions. The former Attorney General has adhered to the rules of the Department of Justice, which require that public servants recuse themselves from involvement in any conflicts of interest. Sessions was the first major political figure to support Trump in the 2016 elections. She also met with the Russian ambassador to Washington at the time of the elections two years ago.
Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff, who will probably lead the House's Intelligence Committee when Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in January, told ABC News: "The biggest flaw in my view is that [Whitaker] was chosen in order to interfere with Mueller's investigation. "
Whitaker has not publicly commented on his role in overseeing the investigation into the Mueller case, although the Justice Department said it was consulting with officials of the US government. ethics on their possible concerns.
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