The White House is refusing to confirm whether President Donald Trump could submit to an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller.
On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that Mueller is looking to question Trump about his decisions to fire former national security adviser Michael Flynn and FBI director James Comey.
The sackings have come under Mueller’s microscope, as he and his team investigate whether Trump tried to obstruct the FBI’s investigation into collusion between his presidential campaign and Russia.
“We’re going to be fully co-operative with the special counsel and we’re going to continue to do that throughout the process,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said when asked if Trump would be open to an interview. “But we’re also not going to comment on ‘may’ or ‘may not’ or ‘could be interviewed at any point.'”
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The highest-ranking Trump administration official to be grilled by Mueller’s team thus far is Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was interviewed for hours last week. Mueller’s team also interviewed Comey last year, the New York Times reports.
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Flynn was fired in February, with Trump explaining the sacking by citing Flynn misleading vice-president Mike Pence about communicating with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak over sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration.
But then in December, Trump tweeted that he had to fire Flynn because he lied to the FBI.
The tweet suggested Trump knew about Flynn lying to the FBI when he pressured then-FBI director Comey to be lenient towards Flynn, as was claimed by Comey in his testimony to the Senate intelligence committee.
At the time, several experts and lawmakers said Trump’s tweet may have amounted to an admission of obstruction of justice.
READ MORE: Trump tweet suggests he knew Michael Flynn lied to the FBI before he fired him
As for Comey, the White House initially said his firing in May was done on the recommendation of the Justice Department, citing a memo that faulted Comey for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation as justification.
But Trump said later that he was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he fired Comey, and he had decided to make the move even before the Justice Department’s recommendations.
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The Washington Post reports that Trump’s legal team is looking to shield the president from a prolonged grilling by negotiating an arrangement in which some questions will be answered in an in-person interview and others in a written statement.
— With files from the Associated Press
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