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‘No Recollection’: What Trump Said in His Written Answers to Mueller

‘No Recollection’: What Trump Said in His Written Answers to Mueller

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump escaped a subpoena forcing him to testify -- despite offering only written answers that the special counsel determined to be “inadequate” -- because Robert Mueller’s office was wary of the “substantial delay” from a legal battle.

Mueller’s decision to forgo a court fight to compel the president’s testimony may be one of Trump’s biggest victories during the probe and came despite the president frustrating investigators by saying more than two dozen times in his written responses that he did not recall or remember critical events during and after his presidential campaign.

‘No Recollection’: What Trump Said in His Written Answers to Mueller

“We made that decision in view of the substantial delay that such an investigative step would likely produce at a late stage in our investigation,” according to the special counsel’s report released by the Justice Department on Thursday.

“We also assessed that based on the significant body of evidence we had already obtained of the president’s actions and his public and private statements describing or explaining those actions, we had sufficient evidence to understand relevant events and to make certain assessments without the president’s testimony.”

That includes Trump saying he didn’t recall knowing about the now-famous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower when top members of his campaign met with a Kremlin-linked lawyer to discuss possible dirt on Democrat Hillary Clinton.

‘Busy Months’

“This was one of many busy months during a fast-paced campaign,” Trump explained in his written responses, included in the redacted version of the investigation’s report.

Trump’s lack of recollection contrasts with his repeated assertions -- in other contexts -- that he has a great memory. “I have one of the great memories of all time,” Trump said in a June 2018 news conference.

Trump did say his desk calendar indicates he met with Paul Manafort the morning of the meeting with the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya. Attendees at the meeting, which included Manafort as well as the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law Jared Kushner, subsequently said nothing came of it.

‘No Recollection’: What Trump Said in His Written Answers to Mueller

Trump also said he could not recall knowledge of the hacking and release of emails belonging to Democratic officials before they were publicly reported, and said he didn’t recall anyone associated with his campaign being in contact with Wikileaks. He couldn’t remember being told that longtime adviser Roger Stone had been in contact with Wikileaks, or that anyone associated with his campaign had discussions with any entities regarding the timing or release of hacked emails. And Trump said he didn’t remember having any discussion during the campaign about offering a pardon to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

‘In Jest’

At some points, Trump defended his actions as motivated by campaign strategy or humor. In response to a question about a speech in which Trump called on Russia to release emails Clinton sent during her tenure at the State Department, the president wrote that he was speaking “in jest and sarcastically.”

But more frequently, Trump simply claimed that he didn’t recall involvement in events. For instance, Trump said he didn’t remember being involved in changing language in the Republican Party platform that watered down support for arming Ukraine, and that he believed he learned about it from media reports.

Critics have suggested the softening of the language in the platform adopted at the Republican convention was evidence of an attempt to help Russian President Vladimir Putin, but the president had previously denied being personally involved in the effort.

Moscow Project

Trump also downplayed his involvement in developing a Trump Organization project in Moscow. Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, said he lied to Congress about work on the Russia project so that his comments would align with Trump and other campaign officials who insisted publicly he had no business in the country.

Trump said his conversations with Cohen about the Moscow project were “not memorable” and that he was “not enthused about the proposal.” He said he “vaguely” remembered press inquiries about the incident and that he likely spoke with campaign staff or Trump Organization employees about how to respond -- but he couldn’t remember any particular conversation.

Trump also said he couldn’t recall being told during the campaign of efforts by Russian officials to meet with him, and he said he couldn’t remember Manafort telling him about particular policy positions Russia would want the U.S. to support.

To contact the reporter on this story: Justin Sink in Washington at jsink1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum

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