WASHINGTON — As negotiations over his potential testimony hit a sensitive point, President Trump complained Wednesday that the Russia investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller is interfering with presidential duties.

"There was no Collusion (it is a Hoax) and there is no Obstruction of Justice (that is a setup & trap)," Trump tweeted before citing a litany of economic and foreign policy challenges on his plate.

"What there is is Negotiations going on with North Korea over Nuclear War, Negotiations going on with China over Trade Deficits, Negotiations on NAFTA, and much more. Witch Hunt!" Trump said.

For a second straight day, Trump protested the Russia investigation amid negotiations by attorneys over whether he will comply with Mueller's request to provide testimony — talks that are shadowed by the prospect of an unprecedented subpoena of a sitting president.

John Dowd, one of the president's attorneys, confirmed that Mueller raised the prospect of a grand jury subpoena at a meeting in early March if the president refused to provide testimony.

Dowd and other Trump aides have argued that a prosecutor does not have the legal authority to subpoena a sitting president, and suggested they would challenge such a move in court.

That sets up the prospect of a long legal battle that would run parallel to the sprawling Mueller probe.

More: Donald Trump: Release of Robert Mueller questions is 'disgraceful'

More: Trump's new lawyer Rudy Giuliani talks to Robert Mueller about presidential testimony

Presidential advisers have been divided for months on whether Trump should speak to Mueller and his team. Some say he should not, citing reams of documents the Trump team has provided to the special counsel that answer their questions, or fearing that prosecutors may spring a "perjury trap" on Trump.

In his latest tweet, Trump referred to the obstruction of justice investigation as "a setup & trap."

Other aides said it is quite possible that Trump and Mueller will agree to some sort of testimony, perhaps written answers to questions posed by the special counsel.

Trump's renewed complaints about the Mueller investigation come after release of a list of more than four dozen questions the special counsel would like to ask the president.

The questions cover the full range of the probe, from whether Trump knew about Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election to whether he sought to obstruct justice by firing then-FBI Director James Comey and ponder changes in the Justice Department.

While pondering whether to testify, Trump is setting up an unprecedented meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in an effort to get him to give up nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, Trump aides are negotiating with China about proposed tariffs that threaten to detonate a trader war between the world's two biggest economies.

As also cited in Trump's tweet, the administration is negotiating changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada.</s>Image copyright PA/reuters Image caption Mr Mueller (right) threatened to force Mr Trump to answer investigators' questions

Special Counsel Robert Mueller warned he could order Donald Trump to testify as part of a probe into alleged Russian election meddling, US media report.

It is believed to be the first time the special counsel has raised the possibility of issuing a subpoena.

Mr Trump has repeatedly denied collusion, and Russia has also denied the allegations.

Meanwhile, the lawyer who has been Mr Trump's main legal representative in the probe is to step down.

The White House said on Wednesday that Ty Cobb had been considering retirement for some time and had decided to go at the end of this month.

Mr Mueller suggested the threat of a subpoena, a court order forcing a witness to appear to give testimony, during talks with Mr Trump's lawyers in March.

It came after Mr Trump's lawyers insisted during the meeting that the president was under no obligation to face questions by federal investigators in relation to the Russia inquiry, the Washington Post reported.

However, Mr Mueller's team reportedly responded by suggesting they would issue a subpoena if Mr Trump declined. They agreed to provide the president's lawyers with more specific information about the questions they wished to ask Mr Trump.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption All you need to know about the Trump-Russia investigation

The president's former lawyer, John Dowd, has also said that Mr Mueller mentioned the possibility of forcing Mr Trump to face questions.

Mr Dowd, who resigned about a week and a half after the meeting, said he told investigators that the probe was not "some game", adding: "You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States."

The list of possible questions has since been published in the New York Times, and it reportedly covers the president's motivations in dismissing former FBI director James Comey last May and his campaign's contacts with Russia.

Mr Trump repeated his claim that the Russia inquiry is a "witch hunt" on Wednesday.

Skip Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump There was no Collusion (it is a Hoax) and there is no Obstruction of Justice (that is a setup & trap). What there is is Negotiations going on with North Korea over Nuclear War, Negotiations going on with China over Trade Deficits, Negotiations on NAFTA, and much more. Witch Hunt! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2018 Report

Explosive legal battle coming?

Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington

If negotiations between Donald Trump's legal team and the special counsel's office have been a delicate dance, Robert Mueller just stomped on his counterpart's toes.

A subpoena to force the president before a grand jury could start an explosive legal battle that eventually reaches the US Supreme Court. Mr Trump and his lawyers may argue that a president can't be compelled to answer such wide-ranging questions.

The president has reportedly cooled on the idea of willingly meeting the special counsel - a result of his feeling that the Mueller team is out to get him. There have been hints that his legal advisers are torn on the matter.

John Dowd, who resigned in March as the president's top personal lawyer, was said to be against an interview. Others, including recent arrival Rudy Giuliani, appear more open to co-operation.

This may explain this week's spate of revelations. Possible Mueller questions, as compiled by the president's lawyers, were splashed across front page yesterday. The subpoena threat is today's news.

Mr Mueller's team remains tight-lipped, but the evolving strategies of the president's side are playing out nearly in full view - and they may be inclined to turn this dance into a rumble.

So will Mr Trump talk?

The US president himself has said he is willing to speak to Mr Mueller, but CNN reports that his enthusiasm has cooled after the offices of his personal attorney were raided.

The network cites sources close to Mr Trump as saying they are yet to make a recommendation about whether he agrees to an interview with Mr Mueller. Some advisers reportedly believe Mr Mueller would not go so far as to issue a subpoena.

If one was issued, Mr Trump's lawyers could fight it in court, or he could refuse to answer questions by pleading the Fifth Amendment, a constitutional protection against potential self-incrimination.

Prominent US lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, who has expressed support for Mr Trump in his legal battles, advised against the US president speaking to the special counsel.

"The strategy is to throw him softballs so that he will go on and on with his answers," he told the Washington Post.

"Instead of sharp questions designed to elicit yes or no, they make him feel very comfortable and let him ramble."

What is Robert Mueller investigating?

The special counsel is looking into Russia's efforts to interfere in the 2016 US election, whether there was any collusion between the Kremlin and Mr Trump's election campaign and whether the president unlawfully tried to obstruct the inquiry.

Mr Mueller was appointed special counsel following Mr Trump's firing of FBI director James Comey last May.

He was chosen by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself due to undisclosed communications with the Russian ambassador.

Mr Rosenstein, who is the only Justice Department official with the authority to fire Mr Mueller, has been reportedly targeted for impeachment by House Republicans.

Speaking on Tuesday, he addressed the "people who have been making threats privately and publicly against me for quite some time".

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption US Deputy Attorney General rails against 'threats'

"I think they should understand by now the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted," he said.

The president has long insisted there was no collusion between his election campaign and the Russians.

US media reported that sources familiar with the case said Mr Mueller informed Mr Trump's attorneys in March that he is a subject of the investigations, but not a criminal target.

It remains unclear when Mr Mueller will request a meeting with the president.</s>Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team raised the prospect of issuing a grand jury subpoena to compel President Donald Trump to testify as part of the Russia probe, the president’s former attorney said Tuesday.

Attorney John Dowd told The Associated Press that Mueller’s team broached the subject in March during a meeting with Trump’s legal team while they were negotiating the terms of a possible interview with the president.

The meeting marked the first time the special counsel’s office raised the possibility of compelling Trump to testify as part of the ongoing investigation. Mueller is probing not only Russian election interference and possible coordination with Trump associates but possible obstruction of justice by Trump.

Dowd’s comments come more than a month after he resigned from the legal team, and they provide a new window into the nature of the Trump legal team’s interactions with the special counsel, who the president has increasingly tried to undermine through public attacks.

On Tuesday, Trump said it was “disgraceful” that a list of proposed questions drafted in response to Mueller’s negotiations with the legal team was “leaked” to the news media.

The New York Times late Monday published around four dozen questions compiled by Trump’s lawyers during negotiations with Mueller’s investigators earlier this year over the prospect of a presidential interview. Mueller is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, whether Trump’s campaign was involved and if the president obstructed justice after the campaign.

The Times report said Trump’s lawyers compiled the questions into a list and that document was “provided to The Times by a person outside Mr. Trump’s legal team.”

The questions range from Trump’s motivations for firing FBI Director James Comey a year ago to contacts Trump’s campaign had with Russians. Although Mueller’s team has indicated to Trump’s lawyers that he’s not considered a target, investigators remain interested in whether the president’s actions constitute obstruction of justice and want to interview him about several episodes in office. They have not yet made a decision about an interview.

Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow declined to comment to the AP, as did White House lawyer Ty Cobb.

In his tweet, Trump said there were “no questions on Collusion” and, as he as many times before, called Mueller’s investigation a “Russian witch hunt.” He said collusion with the Russians “never existed.”

In a second tweet, Trump said: “It would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened.”

The questions do appear to indicate that Mueller is looking into possible collusion. Some touch on Russian meddling and whether the Trump campaign coordinated in any way with the Kremlin. In one question obtained by the Times, Mueller asks what Trump knew about campaign staff, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, reaching out to Moscow.

Mueller has brought several charges against Manafort already, including money laundering and bank fraud. None of the charges relate to allegations of Russian election interference and possible coordination with Trump associates, and Manafort has denied having anything to do with such an effort.

One question asks what discussions Trump may have had regarding “any meeting with Mr. Putin,” referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Another question asks what the president may have known about a possible attempt by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to set up a back channel with Russia before Trump’s inauguration.

Many of the questions obtained by the Times center on the obstruction issue, including his reaction to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal from the Russia investigation, a decision Trump has angrily criticized.

The queries also touch on Trump’s businesses and his discussions with his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, about a possible Moscow real estate deal. Cohen’s business dealings are part of a separate FBI investigation.

Additional questions center on Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his discussions on sanctions against Russia with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition. Flynn is now cooperating with Mueller’s investigators.

“What did you know about phone calls that Mr. Flynn made with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, in late December 2016?” reads one question. Another asks if there were any efforts to reach out to Flynn “about seeking immunity or possible pardon.”

Flynn was fired Feb. 13, 2017, after White House officials said he had misled them about his Russian contacts during the transition period by saying that he had not discussed sanctions.

The following day, according to memos written by Comey, Trump cleared the Oval Office of other officials and encouraged Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn.

Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.</s>Washington: The special counsel leading the Russia investigation raised the prospect in March of issuing a grand jury subpoena for President Donald Trump, his former attorney said, confirming that investigators have floated the extraordinary idea of forcing a sitting president to testify under oath.

Attorney John Dowd told The Associated Press on Tuesday that special counsel Robert Mueller's team broached the subject during a meeting with Trump's legal team while they were negotiating the terms of a possible interview with the president.

It was not immediately clear in what context the possibility of a subpoena was raised or how serious Mueller's prosecutors were about the move. Mueller is probing not only Russian election interference and possible coordination with Trump associates but possible obstruction of justice by Trump.

Trump lashed out against the investigation in a familiar fashion Wednesday, saying on Twitter: "There was no Collusion (it is a Hoax) and there is no Obstruction of Justice (that is a setup & trap)."

Even if Mueller's team decided to subpoena Trump as part of the investigation, he could still fight it in court or refuse to answer questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination.

Dowd's comments come more than a month after he resigned from the legal team, and they provide a new window into the nature of the Trump lawyers' interactions with the special counsel, whom the president has increasingly tried to undermine through public attacks.

On Tuesday, Trump said it was "disgraceful" that a list of proposed questions drafted in response to Mueller's negotiations with the legal team was "leaked" to the news media.

The about four dozen questions were compiled by Trump's lawyers during negotiations with Mueller's investigators earlier this year over the prospect of a presidential interview.

A person familiar with the matter, who insisted on anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, told the AP that the president's lawyers extrapolated the list of expected questions based off conversations with Mueller's team about the topics prosecutors wanted to cover in a potential sit down with Trump.

The questions reflected what the defense lawyers anticipated Trump would be asked, rather than verbatim queries that Mueller's team provided, the person said.

The Washington Post first reported that Mueller's team raised the possibility of a subpoena for Trump. The New York Times first published the list of questions.

 According to the list, the questions range from Trump's motivations for firing FBI Director James Comey a year ago to contacts Trump's campaign had with Russians.

Although Mueller's team has indicated to Trump's lawyers that he's not considered a target, investigators remain interested in whether the president's actions constitute obstruction of justice and want to interview him about several episodes in office. They have not yet made a decision about an interview.

In his tweet, Trump said there were "no questions on Collusion" and, as he as many times before, called Mueller's investigation a "Russian witch hunt." He said collusion with the Russians "never existed."

In a second tweet, Trump said: "It would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened."

The questions do appear to indicate that Mueller is looking into possible collusion. Some touch on Russian meddling and whether the Trump campaign coordinated in any way with the Kremlin. In one question, Mueller asks what Trump knew about campaign staff, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, reaching out to Moscow.

Mueller has brought several charges against Manafort already, including money laundering and bank fraud. None of the charges relates to allegations of Russian election interference and possible coordination with Trump associates, and Manafort has denied having anything to do with such an effort.

The questions also involve key moments from the early months of the Trump administration, including his reaction to Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recusal from the Russia investigation and Trump's firing of his national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

One question asks whether there were any efforts to reach out to Flynn "about seeking immunity or possible pardon" ahead of his guilty plea last year. Flynn is now cooperating with Mueller.</s>WASHINGTON – In a tense meeting in early March with the special counsel, President Donald Trump’s lawyers insisted he had no obligation to talk with federal investigators probing Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

But Special Counsel Robert Mueller responded that he had another option if Trump declined: He could issue a subpoena for the president to appear before a grand jury, according to four people familiar with the encounter.

Mueller’s warning – the first time he is known to have mentioned a possible subpoena to Trump’s legal team – spurred a sharp retort from John Dowd, then the president’s lead lawyer.

“This isn’t some game,” Dowd said, according to two people with knowledge of his comments. “You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.”

The flare-up set in motion weeks of turmoil among Trump’s attorneys as they debated how to deal with the special counsel’s request for an interview, a dispute that ultimately led to Dowd’s resignation.

In the wake of the testy March 5 meeting, Mueller’s team agreed to provide the president’s lawyers with more specific information about the subjects that prosecutors wished to discuss with the president. With those details in hand, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow compiled a list of 49 questions that the team believed the president would be asked, according to three of the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly. The New York Times first reported the existence of the list.

The questions focus on events during the Trump campaign, transition and presidency that have long known to be under scrutiny, including the president’s reasons for firing then-FBI Director James Comey and the pressure he put on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign.

Now Trump’s newly reconfigured legal team is pondering how to address the special counsel’s queries, all while assessing the potential evidence of obstruction that Mueller might present and contending with a client who has grown increasingly opposed to sitting down with the special counsel.

Without a resolution on the interview, the standoff could turn into a historic confrontation before the Supreme Court over a presidential subpoena.

Sekulow and Dowd declined to comment. Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the special counsel, declined to comment.

The president has repeatedly decried the investigation as a “witch hunt.”

“Oh, I see…you have a made up, phony crime, Collusion, that never existed, and an investigation begun with illegally leaked classified information. Nice!” Trump tweeted Tuesday.

Trump’s remade legal team is now led by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who told The Washington Post on Tuesday that he views Mueller as the utmost professional, but is still reviewing documents and considering conditions he might set before deciding whether to recommend that Trump agree to an interview.

“Hopefully we’re getting near the end. We all on both sides have some important decisions to make,” Giuliani said. “I still have a totally open mind on what the right strategy is, which we’ll develop in the next few weeks.”

In the meantime, Trump’s lawyers are also considering whether to provide Mueller with written explanations of the episodes he is examining. After investigators laid out 16 specific subjects they wanted to review with the president and added a few topics within each one, Sekulow broke the queries down into 49 separate questions, according to people familiar with the process.

Paul Rosenzweig, who worked as a senior counsel on independent counsel Ken Starr’s investigation during the Clinton administration, predicted that the president would face a long interview if the special counsel hewed to the list Sekulow compiled.

“This isn’t a list of 49 questions. It’s 49 topics,” Rosenzweig said. “Each of these topics results in dozens of questions. To be honest, that list is a two-day interview. You don’t get through it in an hour or two.”

For his part, Trump fumed when he saw the breadth of the questions that emerged out of the talks with Mueller’s team, according to two White House officials.

The president and several advisers now plan to point to the list as evidence that Mueller has strayed beyond his mandate and is overreaching, they said.

“He wants to hammer that,” according to a person who spoke to him Monday.

“Mueller is in Kenny Starr territory now,” said another Trump adviser, referring to how the controversial independent counsel investigation of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s real estate deals in Arkansas ended up probing the president’s lies about a sexual relationship with a White House intern.

Trump advisers are particularly frustrated by the Mueller team’s focus on whether Trump was obstructing justice by trying to push last summer for Sessions to resign. If the attorney general had stepped down, Trump could have chosen a replacement who was not recused from running the Russian investigation.

Dowd has repeatedly argued that the president has ultimate authority under the Constitution to fire or demote any of his appointees and that his firing decisions cannot be used as evidence of obstruction.

The revelation of the scope of the questions before the president’s team could further complicate recently renewed talks between the special counsel and Trump’s attorneys about a possible interview.

Last week, Giuliani met with Mueller to reopen negotiations for a presidential interview.

Giuliani conveyed the ongoing resistance of Trump and his advisers to a sit-down but did not rule out the possibility. Still, Trump remains strongly opposed to granting Mueller an interview – resistance fueled largely by the raids last month on the office and residences of his personal attorney Michael Cohen.

Trump’s anger over the Cohen raids spilled into nearly every conversation in the days that followed and continues to be a sore point for the president. One confidant said Trump seems to “talk about it 20 times a day.” Other associates said they often stand silent, in person or on the phone, as he vents about the Cohen matter, knowing that there is little they can say.

Alan Dershowitz, a well-known lawyer and Trump advocate, said Tuesday that it would be dangerous and unwise for Trump to agree to an interview.

“The strategy is to throw him softballs so that he will go on and on with his answers,” he said. “Instead of sharp questions designed to elicit yes or no, they make him feel very comfortable and let him ramble.”

In that setting, Dershowitz said, the prosecutors could catch Trump in a misstatement.

Should Mueller seek to compel Trump’s testimony using a subpoena, a legal battle could ensue that could delay the investigation and force the issue into the courts, potentially to the Supreme Court.

Trump’s team could argue that Mueller was seeking information about the president’s private conversations that are protected by executive privilege or that a grand jury interview would place an unnecessary burden on the president’s ability to run the country.

Judges have generally held that the president is not above the law and can be subjected to normal legal processes – but the issue of a presidential subpoena for testimony has not been tested in court. Starr subpoenaed President Bill Clinton for grand jury testimony in 1998 but withdrew it after Clinton agreed to testify voluntarily. He was interviewed at the White House, appearing before the grand jury via video.

Rosenzweig, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said judges generally like to accommodate a president because he has to be free to “manage the affairs of the world and deal with nuclear war without having to worry about whether he has to show up for an interview the next day.”

But, he added, courts are loath to say the president can’t be investigated.

“The opposite argument is that no man is above the law, and if it’s a lawful investigation, then he must respond,” Rosenzweig said.

Some legal experts believe that two Justice Department opinions prohibit federal prosecutors, including Mueller, from charging a president with a crime. Instead, they said, the Constitution relies on Congress’ power to impeach as the route to hold a president accountable for potentially criminal behavior.

Trump’s lawyers could then argue that he cannot be forced to testify under subpoena, unless his testimony is necessary to indict someone else.

The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey and Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.</s>Message to President Trump: Please take the Fifth.

That appears to be the subtext of the nearly fifty questions, leaked to the press on Monday, that Robert Mueller, the special counsel, reportedly wants to ask the President. The questions, revealed in yet another scoop by the Times’ Michael S. Schmidt, do not appear to be word-for-word recitations of what the prosecutor will ask. Rather, they appear to be summaries of those questions, prepared by the President’s lawyers. But the gist is clear. Mueller seems to suspect that Donald Trump orchestrated an obstruction of justice in order to forestall the F.B.I.’s investigation of his campaign’s possible ties to Russia. Mueller also seems to have questions about the legality of the contacts between people affiliated with the campaign and Russians in the first place.

It’s usually a fool’s game to guess who leaked something, and why; the identity and the motives of journalists’ sources are difficult to fathom, even to the leaker and the leakee. But the message, intentional or not, of these questions is clear: there is no way that Trump should put himself in the position of answering them.

To date, Trump’s public comments about the Mueller investigation have generally fallen into two categories. First, he has repeatedly denounced Mueller’s inquiry as a witch hunt. Second, he has insisted, over and over again, that there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia. He has almost never addressed the specifics of the investigation, and when he has (as Mueller’s questions recognize) he has landed himself in trouble. For example, a central part of a possible obstruction case against Trump involves his decision to fire James Comey, the director of the F.B.I., in May of last year. In the immediate aftermath, the White House put out the explanation that Comey was fired for mishandling the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails during the 2016 campaign. But, in the following days, Trump made comments to Lester Holt, of NBC News, and to a group of Russian diplomats, in the Oval Office, to the effect that the firing was designed to forestall the Russia investigation—and thus constitutes a possible obstruction of justice.

The leaked questions try to get Trump to explain this contradiction. “What did you mean in your interview with Lester Holt about Mr. Comey and Russia?” one asks. “What did you mean when you told Russian diplomats on May 10, 2017, that firing Mr. Comey had taken the pressure off?” asks another. For Trump, there are no good—that is, non-incriminating—answers to these questions. Either the original explanation for the Comey firing was false, or else Trump was lying when he gave the second one. Or, given his lack of self-discipline, he may come up with yet another contradictory explanation. Trump would greet many of Mueller’s questions with his characteristic filibusters, but this practice has limited utility in the face of a disciplined questioner. The President would surely try to run out the clock on an interrogation of limited duration—which his lawyers would insist on—but Mueller and his team would probably have some success in obtaining at least some categorical answers from him. And Trump’s absence of good options for answering questions about the reasons for Comey’s firing would recur in many of the areas of Mueller’s interest.

Any sane lawyer would try at all costs to avoid putting a client in this kind of position. But Trump’s legal team has limited options. In public, Trump and his lawyers have presented the matter of whether he answers Mueller’s questions as one of the President’s choosing. It is not. If negotiations over a voluntary interview break down, Mueller will surely issue a subpoena for the President’s testimony. Trump could fight the issue in court, but Supreme Court precedent, from the Nixon and Clinton eras, suggests that Trump would fail to quash a subpoena for his testimony. The courts would demand that Trump testify. What, then, would Trump’s options be?

There are just two. He could testify, and hope that his answers land him in less trouble than he already faces. Or he could take the Fifth—that is, refuse to answer on the grounds that the answers might incriminate him. This, to be sure, is perilous political ground. The public tends to regard taking the Fifth as an admission of guilt. And Trump himself, in a question surely to be endlessly cited, has said, “If you are innocent, why are you taking the Fifth?” But he has apparently already taken the Fifth in the course of his complex history of civil litigation. And he could present taking the Fifth now as a form of protest against an illegitimate and unfair investigation—a view already shared by a substantial portion of Republicans across the country.

If he took the Fifth, Trump would surely endure a few days of bad press, and his assertion of his rights would become an indelible part of his record as President. But would his approval rating, which has rarely strayed more than a few points north or south of forty per cent, really be hurt? Would his supporters desert him? I doubt it. Opinions about Trump, especially in connection with the Russia investigation, seem fixed and immobile. Mueller’s detailed and fraught questions suggest that the risk in answering them far outweighs the risk the peril of just saying no.</s>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyers in March, raised the possibility of issuing a subpoena for Trump if he declines to talk to investigators in the Russia probe, a former lawyer for the president said on Tuesday.

John Dowd told Reuters that Mueller mentioned the possibility of a subpoena in the early March meeting. Mueller’s subpoena warning was first reported by the Washington Post, which cited four people familiar with the encounter.

“This isn’t some game. You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States,” Dowd said he told the investigators, who are probing possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Dowd left the president’s legal team about two weeks after the meeting.

The Post said Mueller had raised the possibility of a subpoena after Trump’s lawyers said the president had no obligation to talk with federal investigators involved in the probe.

After the March meeting, Mueller’s team agreed to provide the president’s lawyers with more specific information about the subjects they wished to ask Trump, the Post reported.

With that information, Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow compiled a list of 49 questions the president’s legal team believed he would be asked, according to the Post.

That list, first reported by the New York Times on Monday, includes questions on Trump’s ties to Russia and others to determine whether the president may have unlawfully tried to obstruct the investigation.

“We do not discuss conversations we have had or may have had with the Office of Special Counsel,” Sekulow told Reuters on Tuesday evening.

Trump criticized the leak of the questions. [nL1N1S80S8]

“So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were ‘leaked’ to the media. No questions on Collusion,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “It would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened!”

Russia has denied interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as U.S. intelligence agencies allege, and Trump has denied there was any collusion between his campaign and Moscow.</s>Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said President Donald Trump’s best legal maneuver would be to challenge a potential subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller.

Dershowitz said, “Mueller has the ultimate card in his hand, the subpoena card. Because you subpoena the president, he has to go in front of the grand jury without his lawyer, without any opportunity to limit the questions.”

He continued, “But this gives the president some options, too. He can challenge the subpoena in court. He can go to the federal district court, the court of appeals, the United States Supreme Court. He can argue you can’t subpoena a president in a criminal case in front of a grand jury. He would possibly lose that broad issue. He can then argue you can’t ask a president why he engaged in acts that are authorized under Article II of the Constitution. He might well win that argument. Then he might argue you can’t ask me questions that go beyond the scope of the special counsel’s authority, namely to business dealings before he became president of the United States, and he may win or may lose that. It’s unclear.”

He added, “I think he’d be in a better position challenging this legally than sitting down with the special counsel and answering that list of 40-some-odd questions that are so open-ended, so vague and so general.”</s>Transcript for Mueller says he could subpoena the president

We begin with that stunning headline in the Russia investigation. Special counsel Robert Mueller has warned president trump's legal team that if trump refuses to an interview Mueller could subpoena him to testify before a grand jury. It is a dramatic threat that could lead to a showdown in the supreme court. Pierre Thomas starts us off, good morning, Pierre. Reporter: George, good morning. The negotiations between the special counsel and president trump's legal team about whether the president will sit down for an interview have become more tense recently. And if they completely fall apart, the specter of an all-out court battle now looms as a real possibility. ABC news has learned that special counsel Robert Mueller is considering subpoenaing president trump if he does not agree to a request for an interview. Sources confirming that Mueller told the president's legal team earlier this year that if they reach an impasse he might seek a subpoena to compel the president to testify before a grand jury. Negotiations between the two under way for months had stalled into the recent addition of Rudy Giuliani in his stable of attorneys. There won't be a stitch of evidence he colluded. Reporter: The prospect of a legal fight between the attorneys could lead to a fierce court battle. This coming as we learn that president trump's attorneys developed a list of questions based on conversations with Mueller's prosecutors concerning what may be asked. The questions include a number of critical topic, the firing of former FBI director James Comey, the firing of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. At issue whether there was obstruction of justice and collusion between trump associates and the Russians. President trump still calling it all a witch-hunt and the white house refusing to comment on the state of negotiations. I'm not going to get into a back and forth about questions leaked or anything having to do with the special counsel and I would refer you to the president's attorneys. How intense have these been? Response to that threat of a subpoena, John dowd, the president's former attorney told Mueller's team you're screwing with the work of the president of the United States. It is getting serious. Pierre, thanks very much. Let's bring in Dan Abrams with more. This is real right now. If this -- if president trump refuses to answer questions, if Robert Mueller then does subpoena him, it goes to the courts. The courts have decided on this before. Let's take one step back which is typically someone could go in and invoke their fifth amendment right and that's fine. We saw Michael Cohen do that. Exactly, exactly, but because he's the president and because there are political implications I don't think anyone expect president trump will go and show up and invoke his fifth amendment right. Two, what happens then? This fight begins and, you're right, two big cases with Richard Nixon not with regard to testimony but tapes, then you have the Paula Jones case, ultimately Bill Clinton and with Ken Starr where it didn't work its way up to this question but all the cases together would clearly indicate that the president does not have a winning legal argument that executive privilege. President Clinton did agree to answer some questions for the grand jury. President trump's team seems to suggest they don't want to answer the questions right now. If the court rules against him, that's when it gets exceedingly serious. Let's say it works its way through the court and the supreme court says it's a valid subpoena and the president says I don't think so and I'm not going to show up. That's when you have the real potential crisis. I think the only real crisis occurs if you have in the end a real war between two branches of government where one is saying, you can't tell me what to do. Even though it's always been accepted that the courts are the final arbiters on a question. That's why you believe it's possible Mueller wouldn't follow through. I still don't think Mueller will do it. There is a difference between will and could. I could and I will is different. I don't think he will do even if trump and the Mueller team aren't able to reach common ground on the questions. A lot left to play out. Thanks very much.</s>?????? Welcome back. Apparently Robert Mueller raised the possibility of issuing a subpoena to you know who if he doesn't agree to talk to federal investigators. But the new guy's top lawyer at the time fired back, this isn't some game. You're screwing with the work of the president of the united States. So how do you think he would handle it if he is subpoenaed? Well, he would have -- Be very careful about this word. Because when I say it, it sounds like I'm saying something totally different. It does. We're talking about subpoena. Say it again. Subpoena. He would have to miss a few golf games for one thing. What work? That's one thing. The other thing is I think he is in trouble, trump. Because if he gets subpoenaed, that looks bad. And Mueller will subpoena him because if he refuses to testify just like he was saying, Clinton volunteered probably because she threatened to subpoena because it looks terrible. If he pleads the fifth, he looks even more guilty. So the guy has to come clean, and it's going to be a beautiful thing to watch. He doesn't have to come clean. He can say, well, I don't recall. I don't recall. I don't recall. Take the fifth. He has some dementia he has to get out. The law will work the way it's supposed to. Say it, sunny. Nobody is above the law. Say it. The president -- what's interesting to me is we were discussing this on the ABC e-mail exchange and I said, this is well-settled. I mean, watergate, Nixon had to give up the tapes. Even Thomas Jefferson was served a subpoena. James Monroe was subpoenaed. Ulis cease grant, and then losing unanimously in the supreme court. Then he resigned. Which will happen to this guy. He thinks he can do anything, and -- The question I have. We had stormy Daniels on the show, and Comey's interview, and reports he is going to fire Mueller. Why are his polls at an all-time high? 41% mommoth university. This isn't resonating. Read the book trump had called a book by Fox News a must-read. They must have read it. It was about the scheme to free Donald Trump. Where did you get that? NBC, gallop, all his ratings are under 40%. That's not a rousing endorsement. They are at an all-time high right now. For him. For him. Yes. For him. I don't think any of us believe these polls anymore. Honestly. I do. I think NBC, you know, unless we're going to talk about them not being reputable. I know a lot of trump supporters. When I talk to them, this stuff doesn't resonate. I think what will resonate is if we start losing jobs and the economy starts tanking. Why do they like him do you think? There are lots of reasons why they like him, but I was watching -- there was a clip of Roseanne Barr talking to Katie couric and she said, I'll take someone speaking real than a bs artist. What about the tax on the press? They're not worried about that? I don't think they care about the attacks on the press. They should. I honestly don't think they do because a lot of people he keeps spewing it's all fake. If you get people believing it's all fake and they turn it on and they're, like, it's all fake. A lot of people don't want to lose what they have, and this is what it's about too. It's about people not recognizing because if we take Roseanne's argument, and she wants somebody who speaks truth to power, and say that's a lot of people. It must be hard to hold onto that belief when you then look at what he says and then what he actually says and then what he actually says again. So where the truth -- nobody knows. We'll be right back.
Robert Mueller suggests that he could order a subpoena in order to get U.S. President Donald Trump to testify to the investigation.