Trump legal team drafting letter about 'reluctance' to answer obstruction questions

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Trump may reject face-to-face interview with Mueller

President Trump's attorneys and special counsel Robert Mueller's team continue to hash out interview details; chief White House correspondent John Roberts reports.

President Trump’s legal team said Monday they are preparing to send special counsel Robert Mueller a letter that would largely turn down a meeting that would include any “questions related to obstruction of justice,” sources told Fox News.

Trump attorneys are expected to send their response to Mueller as early as today.

Last week, a source said that Trump’s legal team would consider allowing questions regarding obstruction if they were in written form.

“In a perfect world, we’d have a few written questions about the obstruction issue, and oral questions about Russia/collusion,” the source said.

Rudy Giuliani, the top lawyer on Trump’s legal team, however, told Fox News “we have real reluctance about allowing any questions regarding obstruction of justice.”

The Washington Post was first to report the letter after an interview with Giuliani on Monday, who said the letter is not intended to decline Mueller’s request, rather he hopes to “continue the negotiations.”

Talks between Trump’s lawyers and the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election have restarted in recent days, and it is not clear a deal will be struck, The Associated Press reported. Trump has publicly expressed a desire to be interviewed, but his lawyers have repeatedly objected to the investigators’ proposals.

Trump attorneys say both sides have exchanged proposals for conditions for such a Trump interview.

The negotiations come amid a backdrop of Trump’s escalating attacks on the probe, including his blunt declaration that his attorney general should terminate “right now” the federal probe into the campaign that took him to the White House, a newly fervent attack on the special counsel investigation that could imperil his presidency. Trump also assailed the trial, just underway, of his former campaign chairman by the special counsel’s team.

“The president still hasn’t made a decision, and we’re not going to make a final decision just yet,” Giuliani told the paper.

Sebastian Gorka, a Fox News national security strategist, told ‘Hannity’ that there is “zero evidence” connecting the president to Russia.

“And I’m going to say now on the record, they will never find any because there isn’t any,” he said.