US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that it “seems unlikely” that he would give an interview in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential coordination between Russia and his election campaign.
Trump said “we’ll see what happens” when asked if he would provide an interview to Mueller’s team.
“When they have no collusion and nobody’s found any collusion at any level, it seems unlikely that you’d even have an interview,” Trump said during a joint news conference with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg.
The special counsel’s team of investigators has expressed interest in speaking with Trump, but no details have been worked out.
Trump’s lawyers have previously stated their determination to cooperate with requests in the probe, which has already resulted in charges against four of Trump’s campaign advisers.
Trump called the investigation a “phony cloud” over his administration.
“It has hurt our government,” he said. “It was a Democrat hoax.”
Trump’s words differed from what he said at a news conference in June last year, shortly after fired FBI director James Comey had told US Congress that Trump asked him for a pledge of loyalty.
Trump denied that, and said he would be “100 percent” willing to tell his version of events under oath.
He said he would be “glad to” speak to Mueller about it.
The comments come after Trump had already criticized the investigations on Twitter on Wednesday morning, urging Republicans to take control of the inquiries and repeating his claim that they are on a “witch hunt.”
“There was no collusion, everybody including the Dems knows there was no collusion, & yet on and on it goes,” Trump tweeted. “Russia & the world is laughing at the stupidity they are witnessing. Republicans should finally take control!”
In a separate tweet, Trump accused Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of being “underhanded and a disgrace” for disclosing details of a dossier of allegations about his ties to Russia during the presidential election campaign.
A day earlier, Feinstein, who faces a primary challenge in her re-election this year, released the transcript of the US Senate Judiciary Committee’s closed-door interview in August last year with an official from the political opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which commissioned the dossier.
She released the transcript of Glenn Simpson’s interview over the objections of the committee’s Republican chairman, Senator Chuck Grassley.
She is the top Democrat on the panel.
“The fact that Sneaky Dianne Feinstein, who has on numerous occasions stated that collusion between Trump/Russia has not been found, would release testimony in such an underhanded and possibly illegal way, totally without authorization, is a disgrace,” Trump tweeted. “Must have tough Primary!”
The material was not classified and Feinstein on Wednesday said that she did not do anything illegal.
As the top Democrat on the committee, she did not need authorization from Grassley to release it, she said.
Her staff helped conduct the interview with Simpson, who had also asked for the interview to be released.
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