Robert Mueller’s team floated idea of subpoena for Trump

At a meeting with Donald Trump’s lawyers in March, special counsel Robert Mueller said he could issue a subpoena to call their client before a grand jury, a development that had stunned and worried the US president’s legal team.

That was the first time Mueller, who is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and possible Trump campaign collusion, had threatened to summon the president, indicating he was prepared to do it if necessary.

“This isn’t some game,” John Dowd, Trump’s then lead lawyer for the Russia probe, had said angrily, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the move. “You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.”

Dowd, who left Trump’s defence team soon after, told Associated Press that Mueller’s team brought up the issue of a subpoena during the negotiation of terms of a possible interview with the president.

The circumstances of the subpoena move remained unclear.

Legal experts have said Trump could challenge the summons in a court of law, or refuse to answer questions by invoking his right under the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution in order to remain silent in order to not incriminate himself.

Trump has seemed keen to do the interview and has said so publicly, but his lawyers have advised him not to, fearing he could damage himself, given his tendency to give false statements and contradict himself. Dowd was among those who had urged him not to.

The interview hasn’t taken place as yet and there are no indications if it will at all, and when.

But Trump’s lawyers are preparing for it and have put together a list of 49 questions, as reported earlier, that they believe Mueller’s team could ask, gleaned from conversations with them. They cover broad topics and subjects that Trump could be asked to talk about, and were not the exact, word-for-word questions that would be asked of him.

The questions were focussed on determining whether there was obstruction of justice by the president or the administration, as it may appear from the queries related to former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former FBI director James Comey and attorney general Jeff Sessions.

They will also ascertain if there was collusion, as it would appear from questions about members of the Trump campaign meeting Russians — such as the Trump Tower meeting his son Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer who had offered dirt on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Trump slammed the “leaked” questions on Tuesday and claimed vindication, falsely, that there were no queries about collusion.

On Wednesday, the day after reports surfaced of the subpoena option, he tweeted: “There was no Collusion (it is a Hoax) and there is no Obstruction of Justice (that is a setup & trap). What there is is Negotiations going on with North Korea over Nuclear War, Negotiations going on with China over Trade Deficits, Negotiations on NAFTA, and much more. Witch Hunt!”