Is Special Counsel Robert Mueller going after White House press secretary Sarah Sanders?
Sanders told reporters at a press conference Friday that she has already been interviewed by Mueller as part of the special counsel investigation into collusion with Russia. “The president urged me, like he has everyone in the administration, to fully cooperate with the special counsel,” she said. “I was happy to voluntarily sit down with them.”
But a Mueller interview isn’t a risk-free chat — even unintentional inconsistencies could result in an indictment for lying.
Sanders interviewed by Mueller
Sanders’ name can now be added to the growing list of White House officials who have been interviewed in the course of the the Mueller investigation, including former press secretary Sean Spicer, former communications director Hope Hicks, and former chief of staff John Kelly.
It is believed that Sanders sat down with Mueller last year, about the time that Kelly was interviewed. And it is also believed that White House lawyers initially objected to the decision. But what Sanders and Mueller discussed remains unknown.
Of course, that hasn’t stopped at least one well-known, left-leaning news outlet from speculating. “While the substance of the interview with Sanders is unclear, one likely area of interest was how Sanders composed statements she made on the podium defending the President regarding the Russia investigation,” reported CNN.
This statement will make more sense once it is put into context.
Leftist commentators got their wish
Besides generally targeting Sanders, members of the left have been calling for Mueller to interview her for some time. Lying and the obstruction of justice are just some of the accusations that they have leveled against her.
Sanders’ involvement with Donald Trump goes back to his 2016 presidential campaign, which she joined after working on another campaign for her father, Mike Huckabee. After Trump was elected president, Sanders took a press job in the White House before eventually being promoted to her current position.
As White House press secretary, Sanders has had the difficult job of answering questions about the Russia investigation from a hostile press that wants to see President Trump impeached. In that task, some have accused her of making false statements, which they say obstructed the Mueller investigation.
Whether Sanders may have made some mistakes here and there remains unclear. But on the whole, she has maintained that there was no collusion between Trump and the Russians — and so far, there’s no evidence to the contrary.
What’s next?
Mueller’s investigation, which is rumored to be coming to a close, has been underway for more than a year and a half without producing evidence of collusion. As a result, he has had to settle for relatively petty or unrelated offenses, such as perjury — whether intentional or not — that occurred during the course of his investigation and the pre-campaign financial crimes of Trump’s associates.
Was this interview the first step in Mueller’s attempt to catch Sanders in a process crime? We’ll see.
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