LEGAL/ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team has given President Trump a list of questions for an interview, and the president—should he agree to sit for questioning—is in for the toughest exam of his life. By providing the president’s legal team with advance notice of these questions, Mueller has made clear that he has no interest in a game of ‘gotcha.’ Instead, his investigators have prepared a fair interview for the president that includes simple, direct questions about his words and deeds. The trouble for Trump and his legal team is that the president will place himself in even greater legal jeopardy unless his answers to these questions are both innocent and true. Many of the questions aim to shed light on the issue at the heart of the inquiry into the president’s possible obstruction of justice: whether he acted with corrupt intent. What were his motives in firing FBI Director James Comey, and were they pure or tainted by the wrongful desire to shield his associates or himself from liability? When Trump reportedly told Russian officials after he fired Comey, ‘I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off,’ was he advocating neutral policy concerns or protecting himself from personal exposure? Was the aim of the president’s tweets and comments threatening Comey to intimidate a witness or simply editorial commentary? Trump will need to not only provide innocent explanations to all of these questions, but also address the pattern of his actions, which otherwise appears damning.”
-Norman Eisen, Noak Bookbinder and Barry Berke, “Mueller’s Questions Ought to Frighten Trump,” Politico, May 1, 2018