MAY 1, 2018
In a photo taken Wednesday, June 21, 2017, Special Counsel Robert Mueller departs after a closed-door meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee about Russian meddling in the election and possible connection to the Trump campaign, at the Capitol in Washington. – AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Michael Zeldin, a CNN legal analyst and former assistant to Robert Mueller, said Tuesday he believes President Trump leaked the list of nearly 50 questions the special counsel allegedly wants to ask Trump.
“I think these are notes taken by the recipients of a conversation with Mueller’s office where he outlined broad topics and these guys wrote down questions that they thought these topics may raise,” Zeldin said on CNN’s “New Day.”
“Because of the way these questions are written… lawyers wouldn’t write questions this way, in my estimation. Some of the grammar is not even proper,” he continued. “So, I don’t see this as a list of written questions that Mueller’s office gave to the president. I think these are more notes that the White House has taken and then they have expanded upon the conversation to write out these as questions.”
Zeldin worked as special counsel to Mueller in the early 90’s when he served as the Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
His comments come after The New York Times on Monday reported that it had obtained a list of questions Mueller plans to ask Trump as part of the investigation into Russian election meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Some questions focus on Trump’s communication with his campaign staffers and Russia, while others discuss Russian hacking during the election and Trump’s past business dealings.
Trump early Tuesday morning called the release of the list “disgraceful” and asserted, as he has in the past, that the investigation is a “witch hunt”.
“So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were ‘leaked’ to the media,” Trump said. “No questions on Collusion.”
“Oh, I see…you have a made up, phony crime, Collusion, that never existed, and an investigation begun with illegally leaked classified information. Nice!”
Courtesy/Source: The Hill
