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Trump blasts leak of Mueller questions as ‘disgraceful’

The disclosure comes as Trump’s lawyers are negotiating whether the president will sit down for an interview with the special counsel.

By LOUIS NELSON and DARREN SAMUELSOHN

President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that a set of leaked questions special counsel Robert Mueller wants to ask him shows that the Russia probe is a pointless exercise, even as Trump’s rebooted legal team is working behind the scenes to defuse the sprawling and intensifying investigation.

The president lashed out after the New York Times published what it said were at least four dozen questions Mueller’s team provided to Trump’s lawyers. The inquiries provided some of the deepest insight yet into the direction of Mueller’s investigation and showed how the special counsel is heavily focused on the question of whether Trump obstructed justice, as well as whether top aides such as former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort colluded with Russian officials during the campaign.

“So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were ‘leaked’ to the media. No questions on Collusion,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Oh, I see...you have a made up, phony crime, Collusion, that never existed, and an investigation begun with illegally leaked classified information. Nice!”

He followed up with another tweet: “It would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened! Witch Hunt!”

Despite Trump’s claim that the Mueller questions do not touch on collusion, there are reportedly several such questions, including “what knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?” and “What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding any meeting with Mr. Putin? Did you discuss it with others?”

Whether Mueller will have the opportunity to get answers directly from Trump remains an open question. While the president previously said he is eager to speak with the special counsel, no such interview has been arranged and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani recently joined the president’s legal team with the specific intention of reaching a decision on such an interview.

The issue of whether Trump should sit down with Mueller has been fiercely debated within Trump’s legal team, and the disclosure of the question list could influence the decision-making process.

John Dowd, who has strongly opposed to the idea of a face-to-face interview between Mueller and Trump, left his role as one of the president’s top attorneys in March — a move that appeared to remove a roadblock to a sitdown.

But talks stalled after FBI agents raided the home and office of longtime Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen, which was prompted in part by a referral from Mueller’s office.

More recently, Giuliani has spoken about the risks of Trump sitting down to talk with Mueller.

“At this stage of an investigation, it’d be highly unusual to let an ordinary client testify,” Giuliani told the New York Times. He added, “This isn’t an ordinary client. This is the president of the United States.”

The late Monday leak revealed that Mueller would like to press Trump with probing, open-ended questions that could prove problematic for a president who often has trouble sticking to a script and frequently offers contradictory statements.

The question topics include:

*What knowledge did Trump have of any outreach by his presidential campaign, including Manafort, to Russia about possible assistance to the campaign?

*What did Trump know about phone calls that former national security adviser Michael Flynn made with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador at the time, in late December 2016?

*What was the president’s opinion of James Comey, the FBI director at the time, during the transition?

*Regarding the decision to fire Comey: When was it made, why, and who played a role?

*What did Trump think and do regarding the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election?

Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney from the Eastern District of Michigan, said one question stood out: Campaign outreach from Manafort to Russia about potential assistance with the campaign.

That question, she said, “seems to be based on previously nonpublic information.”

“Mueller is unlikely to include a false premise in a question, and so he must have heard from some source, such as Richard Gates, perhaps, that Manafort or others reached out to Russia,” she said. Gates was Manafort’s deputy during the campaign, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and making false statements, and is cooperating with Mueller’s team.

Overall, McQuade said, the questions struck her as “very open-ended” and likely the starting point for a much deeper interview.

“Many of the questions seemed designed to assess Trump’s state of mind, which would be important to prove the corrupt intent necessary to establish obstruction of justice,” she said.

Nick Akerman, a former Watergate prosecutor, also said the most interesting questions may not have been included in the set provided to Trump’s lawyers.

“The real questions will be the follow up questions that will rely on detailed facts provided by Mueller’s cooperating witnesses — Flynn, Gates and Papadopoulos — other witnesses who have not pled to any violations, and documents, including emails and data from the review of massive computer evidence,” he said.

George Papadopoulos was a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. He pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is also cooperating in the special counsel’s investigation.

Other legal veterans said investigators and Trump’s lawyers appear to be engaged in a public, high-stakes showdown over the issue of an interview.

“The most likely explanation is that they are trying to justify Trump’s decision not to be interviewed, by demonstrating how broad the questions are,” Elizabeth de la Vega, a former federal prosecutor, said of the questions’ release, which she said had the fingerprints of a source sympathetic to the president’s arguments.

“It’s a risky strategy, because these questions tell a powerful story about the case, even without answers by Trump,” she added. “Trump will never answer these questions, but that is not a problem for the Mueller investigation. They already know the answers.”

Jay Sekulow, a personal attorney for the president, declined comment on Monday night, as did Dowd and a spokesman for Mueller.