Trump's lawyers open to giving Mueller written answers on collusion question

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Report: Mueller will accept some written answers from Trump

On 'The Story,' Sen. Lindsey Graham reacts to the Mueller report, Kavanaugh proceedings and McCain's successor.

Attorneys for President Trump have told Special Counsel Robert Mueller they may agree to submit written answers to his questions in the long-running Russia probe, provided they are restricted to the issue of collusion allegations.

Attorneys sent a response letter Wednesday after Mueller's team notified the president's lawyers they were open to limiting questions to Russia and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. Mueller also said he would be willing to accept answers in written form, though he did ask for the possibility of a follow-up in-person interview.

The president’s attorneys have made it clear they will not allow any questions that deal with the president’s powers under Article II of the Constitution, which includes hiring and firing of federal officials. In other words, they will not allow any questions that go to the issue of obstruction of justice.

Further, the attorneys for now are not committing to an in-person interview with Trump, barring some significant concession from Mueller.

The question of whether Trump will submit to an interview has been a long-running debate inside the president's legal team.

Mueller so far has not requested to ask any questions about obstruction, but included a line in his message to Trump’s attorneys that he may want to ask questions about obstruction at some point in the future.

Speaking on Fox News' "Hannity" on Tuesday,  Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow did not address the obstruction aspect of the probe, but primarily discussed the Russia investigation portion, saying “I’m not worried about questions on Russia.”

“The President is committed. There’s no crime here, no underlying crime that the president was involved in. I’m not concerned about where that goes. Look, if they ask questions, and we think they’re appropriate, we would respond,” Sekulow said.

He pointed out that Trump’s legal team has handed over 1.4 million pages of documents to the special counsel’s office.

“This White House has been the most transparent in history when it comes to investigations or inquiries like this,” Sekulow said. “This needs to come to an end.”

He said he doesn't give specific times or dates as to when he thinks the investigation should end, but that “it needs to happen sooner than later.”

“Because at the end of the day as I said, it’s a process of negotiation,” Sekulow said.

Fox News' Amy Lieu contributed to this report.