The special counsel leading the Russia investigation raised the prospect in March of issuing a grand jury subpoena for President Trump.<\/b>
\nCHICAGO (CBS) \u2014 The special counsel leading the Russia investigation raised the prospect in March of issuing a grand jury subpoena for President Trump, his former attorney said Tuesday, confirming that investigators have floated the extraordinary idea of forcing a sitting president to testify under oath.
Attorney John Dowd told The Associated Press that special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s team broached the subject during a meeting with Mr. Trump\u2019s legal team while they were negotiating the terms of a possible interview with the president.
It was not immediately clear in what context the possibility of a subpoena was raised or how serious Mueller\u2019s prosecutors were about the move. Mueller is probing not only Russian election interference and possible coordination with Trump associates but possible obstruction of justice by Mr. Trump.
Even if Mueller\u2019s team decided to subpoena the president as part of the investigation, he could still fight it in court or refuse to answer questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination.
Dowd\u2019s comments come more than a month after he resigned from the legal team, and they provide a new window into the nature of the Trump lawyers\u2019 interactions with the special counsel, whom the president has increasingly tried to undermine through public attacks.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said it was \u201cdisgraceful\u201d that a list of proposed questions drafted in response to Mueller\u2019s negotiations with the legal team was \u201cleaked\u201d to the news media.
The roughly four dozen questions were compiled by Mr. Trump\u2019s lawyers during negotiations with Mueller\u2019s investigators earlier this year about a possible presidential interview.
A person familiar with the matter, who insisted on anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, told the AP that the president\u2019s lawyers extrapolated the list of expected questions based on conversations with Mueller\u2019s team about the topics prosecutors wanted to cover in a potential sit down with Mr. Trump. The questions reflected what the defense lawyers anticipated he would be asked, rather than verbatim queries that Mueller\u2019s team provided, the person said.
The Washington Post was first to report that Mueller\u2019s team raised the possibility of subpoenaing the president. The New York Times first published the list of questions.
\u201cThe open-ended queries appear to be an attempt to penetrate the president\u2019s thinking, to get at the motivation behind some of his most combative Twitter posts and to examine his relationships with his family and his closest advisers,\u201d the Times said.
According to the list, the questions range from Mr. Trump\u2019s motivations for firing FBI Director James Comey a year ago to contacts the Trump campaign had with Russians. Although Mueller\u2019s team has indicated to Mr. Trump\u2019s lawyers that he\u2019s not considered a target, investigators remain interested in whether the president\u2019s actions constitute obstruction of justice and want to interview him about several episodes in office. They have not yet made a decision about an interview.
In his tweet, Mr. Trump said there were \u201cno questions on Collusion\u201d and, as he as many times before, called Mueller\u2019s investigation a \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d He said collusion with the Russians \u201cnever existed.\u201d
In a second tweet, the president said: \u201cIt would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened.\u201d
The questions do appear to indicate that Mueller is looking into possible collusion. Some touch on Russian meddling and whether the Trump campaign coordinated in any way with the Kremlin. In one question, Mueller asks what Mr. Trump knew about campaign staffers, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, reaching out to Moscow.
Mueller has brought several charges against Manafort already, including money laundering and bank fraud. None of the charges relates to allegations of Russian election interference and possible coordination with Trump associates, and Manafort has denied having anything to do with such an effort.
The questions also involve key moments from the early months of the Trump administration, including his reaction to Attorney General Jeff Sessions\u2019 recusal from the Russia investigation and the president\u2019s firing of his national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
One question asks whether there were any efforts to reach out to Flynn \u201cabout seeking immunity or possible pardon\u201d ahead of his guilty plea last year. Flynn is now cooperating with Mueller.
\u00a9 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

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