MOSCOW, Feb 1 (Sputnik) US President Donald Trump said in an interview with The New York Times he had received assurances from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into the alleged collusion of Trump’s election campaign team with Russia, that the he was not a target of the investigation.
“Rod told me I’m not a target of the investigation … The lawyers ask him. They say, ‘He’s not a target of the investigation’ … He told the attorneys that I’m not a subject, I’m not a target,” Trump said in the interview published on Thursday.
However, when asked if Rosenstein’s answer also concerned a separate investigation into the alleged collusion led by federal prosecutors in New York, Trump said he did not know.
Mueller has been investigating claims that Russia meddled in the 2016 US presidential election, as well as allegations of collusion between Trump’s campaign team and Moscow for months.
Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in the election, saying the allegations were made up to excuse the defeat of Trump’s campaign opponent as well as deflect public attention from actual instances of electoral fraud and corruption. The claims of collusion have also been repeatedly dismissed by both Moscow and Trump who has called Mueller’s probe a “witch hunt.”
On January 9, US media reported that Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller to lead the probe, planned to step down after the investigation would be finished.
Earlier this week, Acting US Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said that Mueller’s probe was close to being completed.
