FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly told the White House that he intends to interview six current and former top staffers in relation to his investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Former Press Secretary Sean Spicer, former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, and Communications Director Hope Hicks are all on Mueller’s list, the Washington Post reported Friday.
Mueller also reportedly intends to question White House counsel Don McGahn and one of his deputies, as well as Josh Raffel — a spokesman whom the Post describes as working closely with Senior Adviser Jared Kushner.
Mueller is believed to be interested in particular in discussions relating to the decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey and the alleged inaction over warnings about former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s dealings with Russia. Flynn eventually resigned after it was revealed he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the U.S.
Mueller is also likely to focus on the discussions related to a misleading statement released by the White House in July after reports emerged about a June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower.
CNN reported Thursday that Mueller is interested in how the White House crafted a response to the initial New York Times report of the meeting, and whether information was deliberately left out of the response.
Trump Jr, along with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign chairman Paul Manafort, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Trump Jr. released a statement for the Times article saying:
It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.
Trump Jr. later revealed that he had taken the meeting after Veselnitskaya teased information that would “incriminate” Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. However, no parties present at the meeting have stated that they discussed Clinton or this promised information in person.
Mueller is believed to be looking into the president’s role in the formulation of the statement, and whether there was any intention to mislead.
The Post reports that so far no interviews have been scheduled, as Mueller wants to review documents that he recently requested from the White House.
Adam Shaw is a Breitbart News politics reporter based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY
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