President Donald Trump said in an interview aired on Sunday he would not intervene if Matthew Whitaker, his acting U.S. attorney general, moved to curtail special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
In an interview with the "Fox News Sunday" program taped on Friday, Trump also said he probably would not agree to a sit-down interview with Mueller, who also is investigating whether the Republican president's campaign conspired with Moscow and whether Trump has unlawfully sought to obstruct the probe.
Whitaker took over supervision of Mueller's investigation on Nov. 7 after Trump appointed him as the chief U.S. law enforcement official to replace Jeff Sessions, who the president ousted. Whitaker, who Democrats have called a Trump "political lackey," in the past criticized the scope of the Mueller probe and brought up the possibility of undermining it by slashing Mueller's funding.