On Monday, The New York Times obtained a list of the questions that Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, wants to ask President Trump in an interview.
The questions are all fairly open-ended, and they mainly explore Trump’s firings of the F.B.I. director and his first national security adviser, and ask questions about 2016 meeting in Trump Tower that took place between campaign officials and Russians who offered harmful information about Hillary Clinton. Some questions also deal with Trump’s personal life, his relationship with various public figures and his thinking behind certain controversial tweets.
Early Tuesday morning, Trump responded to this report on Twitter, calling the leak of the questions “disgraceful” and calling collusion a “phony crime.” He also claims that there are no questions about collusion, which the New York Times noted is false: “While Mr. Trump is right that the word ‘collusion’ is not included in the questions, the nature of some of the inquiries directly addresses the concept of collusion with the Russians.”
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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 1, 2018
Trump also said that it would be “very hard” to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened, which isn’t entirely true. As the New York Times notes, obstruction of justice doesn’t require a guilty verdict, it simply means that someone interferes in an ongoing investigation.
The special counsel has wanted to interview Trump for months, and Trump has said that he would like to be interviewed to bring this controversy to an end. It sounds like both of them will get their wishes in the coming weeks.