President Trump will hand over written answers to questions from special counsel Robert Mueller about Russian election meddling as early as Tuesday and no later than Thanksgiving, according to a report on Monday.
Trump’s lawyers set the informal Thanksgiving deadline for the president to complete his responses and he is just about ready to submit them, Politico reported, citing sources.
Mueller will receive the president’s response as the Trumps settle in for a long Thanksgiving weekend at the president’s Mar-a-Lago golf club in South Florida.
The commander-in-chief — who said Friday that “My lawyers don’t write the answers” and that he wrote them himself — has had several recent sit-downs with his legal team, including Rudy Giuliani, Jay Sekulow and Jane Raskin, to work on his responses.
The president so far has not agreed to be interviewed in person by Mueller, whose team is probing Russian interference in the 2016 election as well as possible collusion with Trump’s campaign.
Trump told Fox News’ Chris Wallace in an interview broadcast Sunday that he was unlikely to agree to an interview with Mueller.
“We gave very, very complete answers to a lot of questions that I shouldn’t have even been asked, and I think that should solve the problem. I hope it solves the problem. If it doesn’t, you know, I’ll be told and we’ll make a decision at that time. But probably this is the end,” said the president, who has regularly dismissed the probe as a “witch hunt” and personally slammed Mueller.
“I think we’ve wasted enough time on this witch hunt and the answer is probably, we’re finished,” Trump added.
Trump departs for Mar-a-Lago — the so-called “Winter White House” — on Tuesday.
Since assuming office, the president has spent 149 days at Mar-a-Lago or one of his other golf resorts, according to the website TrumpGolfCount.
Three Democratic senators, meanwhile, launched a new legal challenge on Monday to Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general, accusing Trump of depriving the Senate of its constitutional power to act on such appointments.
The lawsuit, filed by Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, asks a federal court in Washington to deem the appointment unconstitutional and bar Whitaker from serving as the top US law enforcement official.
The three are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which customarily reviews attorney general nominations.
Whitaker is also on record criticizing Mueller and his investigation, which has already resulted in guilty pleas from former Trump insiders, including fired national security adviser Mike Flynn, campaign chair Paul Manafort and lawyer Michael Cohen.
Roughly two dozen Russians have also been indicted, including 12 intelligence operatives for the GRU, the successor to the KGB.
With Reuters