In a tense meeting in March with special counsel Robert Mueller, President Trump’s lawyers insisted he had no obligation to talk with federal investigators probing Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. Mueller responded that he could issue a subpoena for the president to appear before a grand jury, reports the Washington Post. Mueller’s warning — the first time he is known to have mentioned a possible subpoena to Trump’s legal team — prompted a sharp retort from John Dowd, then the president’s lead lawyer. “This isn’t some game,” Dowd said. “You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.”
The flare-up set in motion weeks of turmoil among Trump’s attorneys as they debated how to deal with the special counsel’s request for an interview, a dispute that led to Dowd’s resignation. After the testy meeting, Mueller’s team agreed to provide the president’s lawyers with more specific information about the subjects that prosecutors wished to discuss with the president. With those details in hand, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow compiled a list of 49 questions that the team believed the president would be asked. Trump’s newly reconfigured legal team is pondering how to address the special counsel’s queries, all while assessing the potential evidence of obstruction that Mueller might present and contending with a client who has grown increasingly opposed to sitting down with the special counsel. Without a resolution on the interview, the standoff could turn into a historic confrontation before the Supreme Court over a presidential subpoena.