Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein informed President Donald Trump last week that he is not a target of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
According to a source familiar with the probe, after the conversation with Rosenstein on April 12, Trump said to his advisers that he was not inclined to seek the ouster of either man since he is not the target of Mueller’s probe.
The Justice Department declined to comment to Reuters and said that it does reveal conversations with the President. The White House also did not respond to a request for comment.
The special counsel is investigating the possibility of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.
Russia has repeatedly denied any type of meddling in the election, and Trump has also stated that there is no collusion and regularly calls the Mueller probe a “witch hunt,” indicating that he might try to fire the special counsel or Rosenstein, who oversees the investigation.
Lisa Kern Griffin, a former federal prosecutor and a professor at Duke University School of Law, stated that “under Justice Department policy, a target is someone who is believed to have committed a crime and is likely to face charges, while a subject is someone whose conduct is within the scope of an investigation.”
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that President Trump is a subject of the probe.
Meanwhile, Griffin stated that the assurance from Rosenstein is not significant because the President might still become a target of the investigation.
“It is possible to progress from being a subject to being a target if the necessary substantive and structural support emerges later,” she said.
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