President Donald Trump has told special counsel Robert Mueller in writing that he neither knew in advance about a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower where a Russian lawyer was expected to dish dirt on Hillary Clinton, nor was tipped by Roger Stone ahead of WikiLeaks‘ dump of emails allegedly stolen by Russians from the Democratic National Committee that same year.
President Donald Trump has told special counsel Robert Mueller in writing that he neither knew in advance about a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower where a Russian lawyer was expected to dish dirt on Hillary Clinton, nor was tipped by Roger Stone ahead of WikiLeaks‘ dump of emails allegedly stolen by Russians from the Democratic National Committee that same year.
Both answers to Mueller, which sources familiar with the matter shared with NBC News on Wednesday, would be in line with what Trump previously has publicly said about the Trump Tower sitdown, which his son Donald Trump Jr. attended, and about the WikiLeaks.
However, the sources did not share Trump’s verbatim answers in what were a series of written responses to questions posed to the president by Mueller. That leaves unclear how categorical — or not — Trump’s reported denials are.
Nor is it known whether Mueller has evidence that could contradict Trump’s answers — which could expose the president to additional legal peril.
The gist of the answers was first reported by CNN on Wednesday .
