Leah Millis/Reuters
In their bid to prevent a subpoena, President Trump’s lawyers have reportedly sent special counsel Robert Mueller a 20-page letter arguing that the president could not have obstructed justice in the Russia investigation because, as president, he has the power to end it. In a copy of the letter published by The New York Times, the lawyers argue that the Constitution has empowered Trump to “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.” The letter, reportedly hand-delivered to Mueller’s office in January and written by John M. Dowd and Jay A. Sekulow, sought to dissuade the special counsel from seeking an interview with the president. In pushing for Mueller to drop the interview behind-the-scenes, Trump and his legal team have also sought to undermine the investigation publicly by attacking its credibility. Hours before news of their 20-page letter to Mueller broke Sunday, Trump took to Twitter to suggest Mueller had been “leaking” his lawyers’ letters to the “Fake News Media.”