President Donald Trump and his legal team said on Wednesday that the President has not been subpoenaed by special counsel Robert Mueller as part of the Russia investigation.
When asked by reporters at the South Lawn if he had received a subpoena from Mueller, the President simply told them, “No.”
The speculation about a possible presidential subpoena originated when Politico published a piece from former federal prosecutor and former White House general counsel Nelson Cunningham, who suggested that in the past few weeks the special counsel has been locked in a battle with the White House over an effort to subpoena Trump and get him to appear before a grand jury.
Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s attorneys in the probe into Russian election interference in the 2016 presidential election, denied the assertion saying, “The report in Politico is completely false. There has been no subpoena issued and there is no litigation.”
According to The Hill, the President’s legal team has insisted that it would resist any efforts from Mueller to subpoena President Trump as part of his probe. Back in May, Trump’s lead attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said that should the President be subpoenaed by the special counsel, they would fight it and “assert the same privilege as other presidents have.”
On Monday, President Trump told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham that it was likely he would respond to “some” questions from Mueller’s office, but Giuliani pointed out that those answers would not be shared with the special counsel until after the midterm elections on November 6.
As part of his Russia investigation, which Trump has often referred to as a “witch hunt,” Mueller has so far obtained guilty pleas from former Trump associates Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Richard Gates and George Papadopoulos.
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