Washington Post: Special Counsel Mueller Looking At Possible Obstruction Of Justice By Trump

Robert Mueller

I'm guessing this is why Daniel Coats, current director of national intelligence, and Adm. Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, refused to answer so many questions last week when speaking to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The Washington Post dropped a bombshell tonight reporting that the special counsel looking into Russian interference in last year's election, Robert Mueller, is now looking into possible obstruction of justice by President Trump.

The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, officials said.

The move by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate Trump’s own conduct marks a major turning point in the nearly year-old FBI investigation, which until recently focused on Russian meddling during the presidential campaign and on whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Investigators have also been looking for any evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates, officials said.

Trump had received private assurances from former FBI Director James B. Comey starting in January that he was not personally under investigation. Officials say that changed shortly after Comey’s firing.

The WaPo piece goes on to detail an encounter between Coats and Trump, as well as phone calls between Trump, Coats and Rogers.

Coats was attending a briefing at the White House together with officials from several other government agencies. When the briefing ended, as The Post previously reported, Trump asked everyone to leave the room except for Coats and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

Coats told associates that Trump had asked him if he could intervene with Comey to get the bureau to back off its focus on former national security adviser Michael Flynn in its Russia probe, according to officials. Coats later told lawmakers that he never felt pressured to intervene.

A day or two after the March 22 meeting, Trump telephoned Coats and Rogers to separately ask them to issue public statements denying the existence of any evidence of coordination between his campaign and the Russian government.

Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the president’s requests, officials said.

And there's documentation: recently departed National Security Agency Deputy Richard Ledgett penned an internal NSA memo documenting the president’s phone call with his boss, Adm. Mike Rogers, according to officials.