Special Counsel Robert Mueller plans to interview President Donald Trump in the “coming weeks,” according to reports by CNN and the Washington Post.
When asked about the news, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the president would be “fully cooperative” with the investigation, but that the White House would be happy to see it come to an end.
According to CNN, Trump’s legal team has decided on “terms it could present to the special counsel ‘as soon as next week’” about an interview and “hopes to have Trump’s testimony only partially through a face-to-face interview, with other answers coming through a written statement.”
The news that Trump would be interviewed capped off a packed day in the Russia investigation.
According to the Washington Post, Attorney General Jeff Sessions sat down with Mueller for several hours last week to talk about the president’s decision to fire Comey, which sparked the formation of Mueller’s special counsel. Investigators also interviewed Comey last week about his time with the president.
Sessions is the first cabinet-level member of Trump’s administration to be interviewed in the probe.
As revelations that federal investigators questioned Sessions, Comey and plan to talk to Trump, two top Democrat lawmakers warned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey that Russian-linked social media accounts are actively working to undermine the ongoing investigation into the country’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“Public reports indicate that accounts linked to the Russian government are again exploiting Twitter and Facebook platforms in an effort to manipulate public opinion,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) in the letter.
“It is critically important that the special counsel’s investigation be allowed to proceed without interference from inside or outside the United States,” the two said of the federal Russia investigation being headed up by Robert Mueller.
Sen. Feinstein, who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Schiff, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, cited research performed by the Alliance for Securing Democracy.
The organization, which is funded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, operates a project called Hamilton 68, which tracks a Twitter swarm of around 600 accounts it claims are “linked to Russian influence operations.” The aim of these disinformation campaigns are often designed, the organization says, to “promote extremism and divisive politics in Western countries.”
“If these reports are accurate,” Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Schiff wrote, “we are witnessing an ongoing attack by the Russian government through Kremlin-linked social media actors directly acting to intervene and influence our democratic process.”
