Mueller report: How Trump avoided interview with special counsel during Russia investigation
It was March 2018, nearly 10 months into his Russia investigation, when special counsel Robert Mueller III, a man of few words, raised the stakes dramatically in a meeting with Donald Trump's lawyers: If the president did not sit down voluntarily for an interview, he could face a subpoena.In the months that followed, Mr Mueller never explicitly threatened to issue a subpoena as his office pursued a presidential interview, a sit-down for which the special counsel was pushing as late as December.But with that prospect hanging over them, Mr Trump's legal team conducted a quiet, multi-pronged pressure campaign to avert such an action and keep the president from coming face-to-face with federal investigators - fearful he would perjure himself.At one point last summer, when a lull in talks had the president's attorneys worried that Mr Mueller was seriously contemplating a subpoena, White House lawyer Emmet Flood wrote a memo laying out the legal arguments for protecting the presi