Source: Mueller convenes grand jury in DC

No information to suggest president is under investigation

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is using a grand jury in Washington as part of an investigation into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, a person familiar with the probe said Thursday.

The use of a grand jury, a standard prosecution tool in criminal investigations, suggests that Mueller and his team of investigators are likely to hear from witnesses and demand documents in the coming weeks and months.

The person who confirmed to The Associated Press that Mueller had turned to a grand jury was not authorized to discuss the investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the use of a grand jury.

Grand juries are common vehicles to subpoena witnesses and records and to present evidence, though they do not suggest any criminal charges are near or will necessarily be sought.

A spokesman for Mueller’s team did not return an email seeking comment.

Mueller’s reliance on a grand jury is the “logical next step in this investigation” given that it’s the traditional method for prosecutors to gather evidence, said Washington defense lawyer Jacob Frenkel.

Meanwhile, lawyers for President Donald Trump said they were unaware of the existence of a grand jury and had no information to suggest the president himself was under federal investigation.

“With respect to the news of the federal grand jury, I have no reason to believe that the president is under investigation,” defense attorney John Dowd told the AP.

It was not clear what witnesses might appear before the grand jury or what evidence it might be accumulating or presented with.

News of the grand jury came as senators introduced two bipartisan bills aimed at protecting Mueller from being fired by Trump, with both parties signaling resistance to any White House effort to derail the investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election.

Trump attorney Jay Sekulow told Fox News on Thursday that “the president is not thinking about firing Robert Mueller so the speculation that’s out there is just incorrect.”

He also downplayed the significance of the grand jury, calling it “a standard operating procedure when you’ve got a situation like this.”

While at a rally in Huntington, W.Va., the president Thursday night said he hopes for a “truly honest” outcome from the Russia investigation that has consumed the opening months of his presidency, and he challenged Democrats to either continue their “obsession with a hoax” or begin serving the interests of the American people.

In other developments earlier in the day, transcripts of Trump’s conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia in January offered new details on how the president parried with the leaders over the politics of the border wall and refugee policy – with random asides on such subjects as drug abuse in New Hampshire.

In his conversation with Pena Nieto, Trump urges the Mexican president to stop saying his country won’t pay for the wall along the southern U.S. border, and the two agree to stop talking about the subject in public.

In the Turnbull conversation, the two leaders discuss a 2016 refugee deal between their nations, under which the Obama administration agreed to accept asylum seekers who had been trying to get to Australia.

Turnbull insists to Trump that the deal is still on.

Trump complains that the deal makes him look bad and says he had a more pleasant conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.