Mueller has dozens of questions for Trump on Russia and obstruction. Read them here

Is Mueller forcing Tump in to a corner?

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As one twitter user said - “there’s only one question Mueller should ask Trump. Leavenworth or Guantanamo?”

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I’m willing to be proven wrong, but I think you’re right here.

I read Mueller as a dogged and tight lipped investigator, hidebound for doing things by the book. I can’t remember anything he’s done that could be construed as public grandstanding or leaking of investigation information. Even some of the bigger bombshells of his investigations seem to have been made public only well after the fact or found through court filings.

Trump’s lawyers were apparently provided a list of these questions in advance as part of the negotiations around getting him dragged in to testify. I don’t know the specifics of his legal team, and as a layman can’t think of any reason they would circulate this information (makes it look to Trump fans like Mueller outside his mandate?). But it seems pretty well established at this point that the rest of the Whitehouse leaks like a sieve. So the idea that someone there shared these questions with the public just strikes me as more plausible than Mueller’s folks doing so.

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Well, sort of. If I were able to possess Trump and answer these questions I believe I could avoid legal trouble:

What did you know about phone calls that Mr. Flynn made with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, in late December 2016?

I don’t really remember things like that. I basically live totally in the moment. It’s sort of like I lack object permanence. I may or may not have known something about the calls at the time, but I wouldn’t know now if I had known then.

What did you mean in your interview with Lester Holt about Mr. Comey and Russia?

I meant what I always mean when I say anything: “I want you to like me.” None of my statements really have any content in the sense you are thinking; the words have no meaning. I regard other people as machines that spit out either judgment or approval depending on what inputs I give them, so I’m just using my experience to guess inputs that will produce the approval rather then the judgment.

Basically I think he could stay out of trouble if he was just honest, but the answers would be perpendicular to the questions.

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Nobody puts baby in a corner.

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This has Giuliani’s grubby paw prints all over it. This is part and parcel of his M.O. to kibosh an investigation; he’s done it before and thinks he can pull it off here too. Grammar errors in the text of the questions indicate they came from within the Whitehouse and not directly from the Meuller investigation. It’s stirring shit into the water to muddy up everything. There will be more. I’m trusting in Giuliani to overstep his assumed prowess and get himself stuck in his own shit pond with the others. I’m gonna go make popcorn.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/05/robert-muellers-former-assistant-explains-grammar-errors-prove-leaked-questions-came-trump/#.WuhFnA5D678.twitter

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You misremembered. In fact, Hillary DID receive debate questions via Donna Brazile - in the primary. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/07/donna-brazile-is-totally-not-sorry-for-leaking-cnn-debate-questions-to-hillary-clinton/

It was reported this morning by other outlets as a leak from Mueller’s questions. If you have evidence to the contrary, provide a link please.

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I’d be fine if someone honesty said, “I’m not sure, I’ll need to think about that,” if they really did respond later. But Trump would never admit he didn’t have a clue. His method during the campaign was to say something like, “yes, we’re looking at that. We’re looking at that very closely.” And that was the last you’d ever hear of the topic.

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I don’t know, I’d rather see how president dotard would do with a pop-quiz.

Nowhere in the NYT article does it say that the list of questions was obtained from the Mueller investigation. That is an assumption that lazy “journalists” and bloggers and re-bloggers are making, and amount to a dangerous game of broken telephone disinformation. The Mueller investigation doesn’t leak, and they have actually made statements to not trust reports that claim to have obtained information from them. The facts are that the Mueller investigation has met with Trump’s legal team and presented an overview of the kinds of questions they might ask, but they did so orally, not in writing. And Trump’s team were allowed to take notes. This “leak” is from Trump’s legal team. I’m guessing this a Rudy Giuliani special.

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Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean it comes from the WH, either. It’s speculation either way where these came from, so sloppy journalism until we have some sort of verification in general.

[ETA] Also, if they (WH) leaked them, but they were from a meeting with the Mueller folks about interviewing Trump, even if they are only possible questions, doesn’t that still indicate a possible directions that the investigation is going? It’s still somewhat in the realm of “from the horses mouth” if it’s from a meeting with the Mueller investigation.

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Reading between the lines from the NYT article, John Dowd is far more likely.

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Oh please. Right on cue, Trump is attacking Mueller on twitter for the leaks. It’s so painfully obvious. It’s part of their coordinated effort to delegitimize the investigation and to manufacture “evidence” to later justify retaliatory action.

I didn’t know who that was, so looked him up. Looks like he resigned a month ago.

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Either way, if that came from a meeting with the Mueller folks, than it still has some accuracy to it, unless you think they just made it up whole cloth.

The point is, we have no idea where it came from either way. You’re speculating just as much as anyone else here. You really can’t pretend otherwise.

It would be more convincing if you kept the answers to 144 characters.

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Yeah, “speculating”. It’s plainly obvious.

Well, I did say to stay out of trouble he’d have to be honest so I was already admitting it was impossible.

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