"You always have to be careful answering questions for people who have bad intentions," President Trump said Friday as he told reporters that he has finished drafting answers to questions from special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and any possible involvement Trump’s campaign may have had in it. Trump said he, rather than his lawyers, wrote answers to about 24 questions that cover the time before he won the election, the Washington Post reports, adding that the Trump camp has yet to agree to answer more questions covering Trump’s time as president-elect and president. Rudolph Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, tells the paper that some of those questions “create more issues for us legally than others,” calling some of them “unnecessary,” “possible traps,” and “irrelevant.” Trump had not yet submitted his answers, according to reports.
In April, the New York Times reported that it got a hold of a list of some four dozen wide-ranging questions that Mueller wanted the president to answer, observing, “The open-ended queries appear to be an attempt to penetrate the president’s thinking.” The questions touch on everything from Trump’s firing of James Comey and his treatment of Jeff Sessions to his businesses and a 2013 trip to Moscow. Ultimately, though, the smaller set of questions Trump agreed to answer relate only to possible Russia collusion, CNN reports, noting that this week that Trump once again blasted the Mueller investigation in a series of tweets, something that has coincided with developments in the investigation. (Trump also responded to a judge’s ruling on CNN’s Jim Acosta.)