Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump's lead lawyer, John Dowd, has resigned from the President's personal legal team handling the response to the Russia investigation.

"I love the President and wish him well," Dowd said in a statement to CNN.

Dowd, who has urged the President to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller's probe and resist attacking him publicly, resigned as his disagreements with Trump intensified and the President stepped up his attacks on the special counsel. His departure raises questions about the direction of Trump's legal strategy and could signal a more aggressive posture on Trump's part.

Just days before his resignation, Dowd said in a statement the investigation should end, initially claiming he was speaking for the President before saying he was only speaking for himself. Two sources familiar with the matter said Trump had encouraged Dowd to speak out. But the statement only drew unwanted headlines and stoked turmoil within the President's legal team, according to multiple sources.

One source familiar with the decision described Dowd's resignation as a "mutual decision."

Despite public claims that he was happy with him, Trump complained privately in recent days that he thought Dowd was falling short of his duties, a source familiar with his thinking said. He questioned whether he had the energy or capacity to continue on in his role as the lead lawyer for the special counsel's investigation.

It was not immediately clear who would take over as the President's lead personal attorney, but Trump earlier this week hired another veteran Washington attorney, Joseph diGenova, to join his legal team. DiGenova was expected to play a forward-facing role on the legal team, filling what Trump felt was a lack of voices publicly defending him and challenging the special counsel.

DiGenova had publicly argued that Trump had been "framed" by FBI and Justice Department officials.

Dowd's departure also raises questions about the fate of negotiations between the President's attorneys and the special counsel's team over a potential interview with the President as Dowd has been the main point of contact with the special counsel's team throughout the investigation. One source said there is concern about the void Dowd will leave in his wake, particularly as Trump has had trouble finding top-flight lawyers to join his legal team.

Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's private attorneys, called Dowd a "friend" and said he "has been a valuable member of our legal team."

"We will continue our ongoing representation of the President and our cooperation with the Office of Special Counsel," Sekulow said in a statement.

As the investigation seems to be intensifying, the President, according to multiple sources, is convinced he needs to take the reins of his own legal strategy and Trump has recently pushed to bring new attorneys onto his team.

The shift distressed some of his lawyers, namely Dowd, who felt blindsided and insulted by the President's hire of diGenova and other shifts, privately threatening to quit before ultimately resigning on Thursday, two sources said.

Trump had also continued to speak regularly with Marc Kasowitz, his longtime lawyer who stepped back from leading the team months ago but still remained involved.

JUST WATCHED NYT: Trump lawyers worried he'd lie to Mueller Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH NYT: Trump lawyers worried he'd lie to Mueller 00:54

Kasowitz had long recommended that Trump take a more aggressive posture toward the Mueller investigation. That strategy was on the backburner as Dowd and Ty Cobb, the White House's special counsel on the matter, worked with Mueller and urged the President to refrain from appearing to publicly undermine the Mueller investigation. Now that has all changed, as the President has reverted to his initial strategy to attack. An experienced cable news commentator, diGenova shares the President's view that the FBI and the Justice Department have waged a corrupt battle against him.

Dowd also faced criticism over his handling of the response to the guilty plea of Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who became the first Trump administration official to face charges in Mueller's investigation.

Dowd landed himself and the President in hot water after a tweet he says he authored suggested Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI in January, reviving questions of whether Trump committed obstruction of justice when he allegedly asked then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.

"I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies," the tweet on Trump's account said.

The tweet led Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to note that the committee is investigating obstruction of justice and said: "What we're beginning to see is the putting together of a case of obstruction of justice."

In a testy exchange with CNN, Dowd said he authored the tweet, but then suggested it was incorrect, claiming that "at the time of the firing no one including Justice had accused Flynn of lying."

He declined to answer additional questions, saying: "Enough already ... I don't feed the haters."

The response was characteristic of Dowd's hard-charging style, which initially endeared him to the President and made him the lead attorney on the President's legal team after Kasowitz was asked to step back in July.

The latest shake-up now leaves questions about whether Trump's legal team will pursue the strategy that Dowd laid out in the wake of Flynn's guilty plea, when Dowd claimed that Trump could not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice because he is the US President and therefore its "chief law enforcement officer."

Dowd's claim signaled the President's legal team plans to rely on an untested theory that is heavily disputed by legal scholars: whether a sitting President can be charged with obstruction of justice or indicted at all.

CNN's John King and Kaitlan Collins contributed to this report. </s> Image copyright Reuters Image caption Mr Dowd took over the president's legal team last summer

US President Donald Trump's lead lawyer for the special counsel investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 election has resigned, US media report.

John Dowd, 77, is reported to have concluded that Mr Trump was increasingly ignoring his advice.

Other reports say Mr Trump had lost confidence in Mr Dowd's ability to handle special counsel Robert Mueller.

In an email to news outlets, Mr Dowd wrote: "I love the president and wish him well."

The special counsel is investigating possible links between Mr Trump's associates and Russia, as well as whether the president has obstructed the inquiry.

Last week, Mr Dowd called on the Department of Justice to immediately shut down Mr Mueller's investigation - initially saying that he was speaking for the president.

But he later clarified that he was speaking for himself and not on Mr Trump's behalf.

To testify or not?

Mr Dowd took over the president's legal team last summer.

Under his leadership, Mr Trump's team of lawyers advised the president to co-operate with the special counsel.

Mr Trump has recently begun publicly criticising Mr Mueller by name, rather than just his inquiry.

In response, several congressional Republicans warned Mr Trump not to consider firing Mr Mueller. Senator Lindsey Graham warned that "that would be the beginning of the end of his presidency".

Mr Trump has also reportedly insisted he wants to be interviewed by the inquiry, a step Mr Dowd was said to oppose.

Last week Mr Trump added combative former US attorney Joe diGenova, who has been a pundit on Fox News, to his legal team.

Trump's patience wearing thin?

Analysis by Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington DC

Just 11 days after dismissing reports that he was shopping for new lawyers and tweeting that he was "very happy" with his personal legal team, Donald Trump has hired a new lawyer and parted ways with the head of his legal team.

It could be an indication that the president's simmering dissatisfaction with the direction of his legal defence is coming to a head.

Up until now, Mr Trump's top lawyers have been pledging full co-operation with Robert Mueller's investigation, assuring that a timely but thorough review of the evidence will end in complete exoneration.

Now, however, the president could be opting for a more confrontational approach. His new hire, Joseph DiGenova, has suggested the president is the target of an FBI conspiracy. And last weekend, for the first time, Mr Trump took aim at Mr Mueller by name in a series of incendiary tweets.

Mr Mueller is reportedly looking into Mr Trump's business dealings and foreign contacts with the Trump administration beyond just Russia - suggesting that his investigation is nowhere near drawing to a close.

The president has been counselled to be patient. That patience could be wearing thin. </s> (CNN) — President Donald Trump’s lead lawyer, John Dowd, has resigned from the President’s personal legal team handling the response to the Russia investigation.

“I love the President and wish him well,” Dowd said in a statement to CNN.

Dowd’s resignation comes as Trump has stepped up his attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller and days after Dowd said in a statement the investigation should end, initially claiming he was speaking for the President before saying he was only speaking for himself.

“John Dowd is a friend and has been a valuable member of our legal team. We will continue our ongoing representation of the President and our cooperation with the Office of Special Counsel,” said Jay Sekulow, counsel to the President.

Trump’s attorneys are in the midst of negotiations with the special counsel’s team over a potential interview with the President.

It was not immediately clear who would take over as the President’s lead personal attorney, but Trump earlier this week hired another veteran Washington attorney, Joseph diGenova, to join his legal team. diGenova was expected to play a forward-facing role on the legal team, filling what Trump felt was a lack of voices publicly defending him and challenging the special counsel. DiGenova had publicly argued that Trump had been “framed” by FBI and Justice Department officials.

The New York Times and The Washington Post first reported Dowd’s resignation.

Dowd previously was criticized for his handling of the response to the guilty plea of Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who became the first Trump administration official to face charges in Mueller’s investigation. The President first shook up his legal team over the summer, removing Marc Kasowitz as his lead attorney in the matter.

Dowd landed himself and the President in hot water after a tweet he says he authored suggested Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI in January, reviving questions of whether Trump committed obstruction of justice when he allegedly asked then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.

“I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies,” the tweet on Trump’s account said.

The tweet led Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to note that the committee is investigating obstruction of justice and said: “What we’re beginning to see is the putting together of a case of obstruction of justice.”

In a testy exchange with CNN, Dowd said he authored the tweet, but then suggested it was incorrect, claiming that “at the time of the firing no one including Justice had accused Flynn of lying.”

He declined to answer additional questions, saying: “Enough already … I don’t feed the haters.”

The response was characteristic of Dowd’s hard-charging style, which initially endeared him to the President and made him the lead attorney on the President’s legal team after Trump all but discarded Kasowitz in July.

The latest shake-up now leaves questions about whether Trump’s legal team will pursue the strategy that Dowd laid out in the wake of Flynn’s guilty plea, when Dowd claimed that Trump could not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice because he is the US President and therefore its “chief law enforcement officer.”

Dowd’s claim signaled the President’s legal team plans to rely on an untested theory that is heavily disputed by legal scholars: whether a sitting President can be charged with obstruction of justice or indicted at all. </s> Former CIA Director John Brennan stated that President Donald Trump committed “treasonous” acts during his news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday in Helsinki, Finland.

He also called on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to resign, apparently in response to Trump not condemning Russian efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. elections.

“Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors,'” Brennan tweeted.

The former Obama administration official continued, “It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???”

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Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution provides, “The President…shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

In an interview on MSNBC, following Monday’s joint Trump-Putin news conference, Brennan said, “I cannot understand how the national security team can continue to abide by this and how Mike Pompeo and Bolton and John Kelly can continue in their jobs.”

“This, I think, rises to the point of good American patriots resigning in objection to that performance by Donald Trump,” said Brennan, an MSNBC analyst.

When asked if he would denounce Putin, Trump said, “I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today and what he did is an incredible offer.”

In response to the indictments of 12 Russian intelligence officers announced Friday by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Putin stated his willingness to allow U.S. law enforcement to interface directly with their Russian counterparts to investigate the matter.

Trump also said he wants to know what happened to the Democratic National Committee’s server that was allegedly hacked into by Russians, according to the indictments.

“I want to know where is the server?” he said. “I want to know what is the server saying.”

“Why was the FBI asked to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee?” Trump questioned. “I’ve been asking that for months and months.”

The president clearly sees special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe as a means for Democrats to delegitimize his election victory over Clinton.

“That was a clean campaign,” Trump said. “I beat Hillary Clinton easily, and frankly we beat her. We won that race and it’s a shame that there can even be a little bit of a cloud over it. The main thing and we discussed this also: zero collusion.”

Trump tweeted earlier on Monday, “President Obama thought that Crooked Hillary was going to win the election, so when he was informed by the FBI about Russian Meddling, he said it couldn’t happen, was no big deal, & did NOTHING about it. When I won it became a big deal and the Rigged Witch Hunt headed by Strzok!”

“Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory,” McCain said in a statement. “The damage inflicted by Pres. Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., cast doubt on Brennan’s assessment, telling Fox News he was a “disaster’ as CIA director.

“He was a member of the Communist Party during the Cold War,” DeSantis said. “So this is not exactly the guy I would listen to about Russia.”

Fox reported that Brennan has admitted to voting for Gus Hall, the Communist Party USA presidential candidate, in 1976.

“(Trump’s) administration has been tougher on Russia than Obama,” DeSantis said. “He’s got a story to tell and I think that he should try to do that.”

While the former CIA chief tweeted that Trump is “wholly in the pocket of Putin,” the president has taken a much stronger stance to Russia than Brennan’s former boss did.

Trump is providing heavy military weaponry to the Ukraine, so the nation can better defend itself against Russia, which is something Obama refused to do.

The U.S. leader has also pushed member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to increase military expenditures, pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal, chastised Germany for a natural gas pipeline deal with Russia, and ordered military strikes against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, all clearly contrary Putin’s wishes too.

Obama was famously caught on a hot mic in March 2012 telling then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility” regarding the issue of the placement of anti-missile defense in Eastern Europe, saying, “This is my last election.”

“I will transmit this information to Vladimir,” Medvedev responded.

Facebook has greatly reduced the distribution of our stories in our readers' newsfeeds and is instead promoting mainstream media sources. When you share to your friends, however, you greatly help distribute our content. Please take a moment and consider sharing this article with your friends and family. Thank you. </s> NEW YORK (Reuters) - Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyers in March, raised the possibility of issuing a subpoena for Trump if he declines to talk to investigators in the Russia probe, a former lawyer for the president said on Tuesday.

John Dowd told Reuters that Mueller mentioned the possibility of a subpoena in the early March meeting. Mueller’s subpoena warning was first reported by the Washington Post, which cited four people familiar with the encounter.

“This isn’t some game. You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States,” Dowd said he told the investigators, who are probing possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Dowd left the president’s legal team about two weeks after the meeting.

The Post said Mueller had raised the possibility of a subpoena after Trump’s lawyers said the president had no obligation to talk with federal investigators involved in the probe.

After the March meeting, Mueller’s team agreed to provide the president’s lawyers with more specific information about the subjects they wished to ask Trump, the Post reported.

With that information, Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow compiled a list of 49 questions the president’s legal team believed he would be asked, according to the Post.

That list, first reported by the New York Times on Monday, includes questions on Trump’s ties to Russia and others to determine whether the president may have unlawfully tried to obstruct the investigation.

“We do not discuss conversations we have had or may have had with the Office of Special Counsel,” Sekulow told Reuters on Tuesday evening.

Trump criticized the leak of the questions. [nL1N1S80S8]

“So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were ‘leaked’ to the media. No questions on Collusion,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “It would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened!”

Russia has denied interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as U.S. intelligence agencies allege, and Trump has denied there was any collusion between his campaign and Moscow. </s> WASHINGTON – In a tense meeting in early March with the special counsel, President Donald Trump’s lawyers insisted he had no obligation to talk with federal investigators probing Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

But Special Counsel Robert Mueller responded that he had another option if Trump declined: He could issue a subpoena for the president to appear before a grand jury, according to four people familiar with the encounter.

Mueller’s warning – the first time he is known to have mentioned a possible subpoena to Trump’s legal team – spurred a sharp retort from John Dowd, then the president’s lead lawyer.

“This isn’t some game,” Dowd said, according to two people with knowledge of his comments. “You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.”

The flare-up set in motion weeks of turmoil among Trump’s attorneys as they debated how to deal with the special counsel’s request for an interview, a dispute that ultimately led to Dowd’s resignation.

In the wake of the testy March 5 meeting, Mueller’s team agreed to provide the president’s lawyers with more specific information about the subjects that prosecutors wished to discuss with the president. With those details in hand, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow compiled a list of 49 questions that the team believed the president would be asked, according to three of the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly. The New York Times first reported the existence of the list.

The questions focus on events during the Trump campaign, transition and presidency that have long known to be under scrutiny, including the president’s reasons for firing then-FBI Director James Comey and the pressure he put on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign.

Now Trump’s newly reconfigured legal team is pondering how to address the special counsel’s queries, all while assessing the potential evidence of obstruction that Mueller might present and contending with a client who has grown increasingly opposed to sitting down with the special counsel.

Without a resolution on the interview, the standoff could turn into a historic confrontation before the Supreme Court over a presidential subpoena.

Sekulow and Dowd declined to comment. Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the special counsel, declined to comment.

The president has repeatedly decried the investigation as a “witch hunt.”

“Oh, I see…you have a made up, phony crime, Collusion, that never existed, and an investigation begun with illegally leaked classified information. Nice!” Trump tweeted Tuesday.

Trump’s remade legal team is now led by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who told The Washington Post on Tuesday that he views Mueller as the utmost professional, but is still reviewing documents and considering conditions he might set before deciding whether to recommend that Trump agree to an interview.

“Hopefully we’re getting near the end. We all on both sides have some important decisions to make,” Giuliani said. “I still have a totally open mind on what the right strategy is, which we’ll develop in the next few weeks.”

In the meantime, Trump’s lawyers are also considering whether to provide Mueller with written explanations of the episodes he is examining. After investigators laid out 16 specific subjects they wanted to review with the president and added a few topics within each one, Sekulow broke the queries down into 49 separate questions, according to people familiar with the process.

Paul Rosenzweig, who worked as a senior counsel on independent counsel Ken Starr’s investigation during the Clinton administration, predicted that the president would face a long interview if the special counsel hewed to the list Sekulow compiled.

“This isn’t a list of 49 questions. It’s 49 topics,” Rosenzweig said. “Each of these topics results in dozens of questions. To be honest, that list is a two-day interview. You don’t get through it in an hour or two.”

For his part, Trump fumed when he saw the breadth of the questions that emerged out of the talks with Mueller’s team, according to two White House officials.

The president and several advisers now plan to point to the list as evidence that Mueller has strayed beyond his mandate and is overreaching, they said.

“He wants to hammer that,” according to a person who spoke to him Monday.

“Mueller is in Kenny Starr territory now,” said another Trump adviser, referring to how the controversial independent counsel investigation of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s real estate deals in Arkansas ended up probing the president’s lies about a sexual relationship with a White House intern.

Trump advisers are particularly frustrated by the Mueller team’s focus on whether Trump was obstructing justice by trying to push last summer for Sessions to resign. If the attorney general had stepped down, Trump could have chosen a replacement who was not recused from running the Russian investigation.

Dowd has repeatedly argued that the president has ultimate authority under the Constitution to fire or demote any of his appointees and that his firing decisions cannot be used as evidence of obstruction.

The revelation of the scope of the questions before the president’s team could further complicate recently renewed talks between the special counsel and Trump’s attorneys about a possible interview.

Last week, Giuliani met with Mueller to reopen negotiations for a presidential interview.

Giuliani conveyed the ongoing resistance of Trump and his advisers to a sit-down but did not rule out the possibility. Still, Trump remains strongly opposed to granting Mueller an interview – resistance fueled largely by the raids last month on the office and residences of his personal attorney Michael Cohen.

Trump’s anger over the Cohen raids spilled into nearly every conversation in the days that followed and continues to be a sore point for the president. One confidant said Trump seems to “talk about it 20 times a day.” Other associates said they often stand silent, in person or on the phone, as he vents about the Cohen matter, knowing that there is little they can say.

Alan Dershowitz, a well-known lawyer and Trump advocate, said Tuesday that it would be dangerous and unwise for Trump to agree to an interview.

“The strategy is to throw him softballs so that he will go on and on with his answers,” he said. “Instead of sharp questions designed to elicit yes or no, they make him feel very comfortable and let him ramble.”

In that setting, Dershowitz said, the prosecutors could catch Trump in a misstatement.

Should Mueller seek to compel Trump’s testimony using a subpoena, a legal battle could ensue that could delay the investigation and force the issue into the courts, potentially to the Supreme Court.

Trump’s team could argue that Mueller was seeking information about the president’s private conversations that are protected by executive privilege or that a grand jury interview would place an unnecessary burden on the president’s ability to run the country.

Judges have generally held that the president is not above the law and can be subjected to normal legal processes – but the issue of a presidential subpoena for testimony has not been tested in court. Starr subpoenaed President Bill Clinton for grand jury testimony in 1998 but withdrew it after Clinton agreed to testify voluntarily. He was interviewed at the White House, appearing before the grand jury via video.

Rosenzweig, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said judges generally like to accommodate a president because he has to be free to “manage the affairs of the world and deal with nuclear war without having to worry about whether he has to show up for an interview the next day.”

But, he added, courts are loath to say the president can’t be investigated.

“The opposite argument is that no man is above the law, and if it’s a lawful investigation, then he must respond,” Rosenzweig said.

Some legal experts believe that two Justice Department opinions prohibit federal prosecutors, including Mueller, from charging a president with a crime. Instead, they said, the Constitution relies on Congress’ power to impeach as the route to hold a president accountable for potentially criminal behavior.

Trump’s lawyers could then argue that he cannot be forced to testify under subpoena, unless his testimony is necessary to indict someone else.

The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey and Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report. </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In another senior staff shake-up inside his often turbulent administration, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he has picked the two people he wants to be the next U.S. attorney general and the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

He said he will nominate William Barr, who was attorney general under former President George H.W. Bush in the 1990s, to fill that top job again at the U.S. Justice Department.

Barr would replace Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, who has been in that position since Trump forced out Jeff Sessions as attorney general a month ago.

Trump also said he will put forward State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert as ambassador to the United Nations. Nauert, a former host at Fox News Channel, would replace Nikki Haley, who announced in October that she would resign at the end of this year.

Both appointments would require U.S. Senate confirmation.

Trump, speaking to reporters outside the White House, also said he would make a personnel announcement concerning the Pentagon on Saturday.

“It will have to do with the joint chiefs of staff, the succession,” he told reporters outside the White House, suggesting he may name a new top U.S. military officer.

Separately, CNN reported on Friday that John Kelly is expected to resign in coming days as White House chief of staff, citing unnamed sources. Reuters has not independently confirmed the report.

The proposed changes come as the Republican president faces another difficult stretch.

Democrats are promising aggressive oversight of Trump’s administration and business activities when they take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January following their gains in last month’s elections.

Special Counsel Robert Muller is continuing to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, any collusion between Moscow and Trump’s campaign and possible obstruction of justice. More details of the inquiry were set to emerge in court filings on Friday.

Barr, who was attorney general under Bush from 1991 to 1993 and has worked in the private sector since then, would oversee Mueller’s probe if the Senate confirms him in the job again.

Barr is likely to face pressure at his confirmation hearings to show he would protect Mueller from political interference. Critics of Trump have long been concerned that the president wants to end the Mueller probe.

Trump, who has repeatedly denounced the investigation as a “witch hunt,” denies any collusion with Russia or any obstruction of justice. Russia denies U.S. intelligence agencies’ findings that it meddled in the 2016 election campaign to try to tilt the vote in Trump’s favor.

Barr also may face scrutiny about past comments questioning the political affiliations of Mueller’s team and supporting Trump’s decision last year to fire FBI Director James Comey.

“I hope he will use the opportunity to unambiguously commit, should he be confirmed, to upholding the rule of law,” Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said on Twitter.

Trump called Barr “a terrific man, a terrific person, a brilliant man,” in remarks to reporters as he left for an out-of-town event.

“He was my first choice from Day One. Respected by Republicans and respected by Democrats. He will be nominated for United States Attorney General and hopefully that process will go very quickly,” Trump said.

Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney who is currently acting head of the Justice Department, has drawn criticism for past business ventures and critical comments about the Mueller investigation before he joined the department.

Trump mocked and belittled Sessions for more than a year, angry at Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia probe because he had worked for Trump’s election campaign.

If she is confirmed to the U.N. ambassador post, Nauert would bring little diplomatic experience to a highly visible international role.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, praised Nauert as “one of the United States’ strongest voices on the global stage.” Democrats were less enthusiastic.

“She’s clearly not qualified for this job, but these days it seems that the most important qualification is that you show up on Donald Trump’s TV screen,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said on CNN.

Other nations with veto power on the U.N. Security Council are all represented by ambassadors with decades of foreign policy experience.

Nauert would succeed Haley, a former South Carolina governor who also had little experience in world affairs before she took the job. Haley insisted that she be made a member of Trump’s Cabinet and his National Security Council to bolster her power within the administration.

Bringing Nauert aboard in a sub-cabinet role could diminish the position, said Stephen Pomper, a former Obama administration official. </s> The special counsel investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election has charged an attorney with making a false statement when he was interviewed about work he did with a Trump campaign adviser six years ago.

The attorney, Alex van der Zwaan, who worked in London for the prominent New York law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, was expected to appear in court on Tuesday. He is accused of making false statements regarding communications he had with Rick Gates, the former Trump campaign aide, about work done in Ukraine, according to a document filed in court on Friday.

Gates was a longtime business associate of Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, and followed him onto the campaign. Both have been charged by the special counsel with money laundering and violations of tax and lobbying laws and have pleaded not guilty. Manafort was not mentioned in the court document about Van der Zwaan.

Manafort’s relationship with Skadden dates to years before his work on the Trump campaign. He enlisted the firm in his effort to shield a client, Viktor F. Yanukovych, the pro-Russia president of Ukraine, from international condemnation.

Manafort asked Skadden to draft a report that would help counter accusations that Yanukovych’s government had prosecuted and convicted the former Ukrainian prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, on corruption charges in 2011 for political reasons and without sufficient evidence.

Ukraine’s top prosecutor asked the Department of Justice last year or earlier for help in questioning eight lawyers who the Ukrainians believed were involved in Skadden’s work, according to documents reviewed by the New York Times. Van der Zwaan’s name was on the list, though it is unclear what role he played in crafting the report.

Also on the list was Skadden’s lead lawyer on the report, Gregory B. Craig, who served as President Barack Obama’s White House counsel, as well as Clifford M. Sloan, who also worked in the Obama administration.

In a statement, Skadden said: “The firm terminated its employment of Alex van der Zwaan in 2017 and has been cooperating with authorities in connection with this matter.” Craig and Sloan both declined to comment.

The request by the Ukrainian prosecutor was made as part of a criminal corruption investigation into the government of Yanukovych. The Ukrainian general prosecutor alleged that his government circumvented contracting rules by initially agreeing to pay Skadden a fee that was less than the threshold for competitive bidding — reportedly about $12,000 — then later paying the firm a total of nearly $1.1 million.

In court documents in that case, Manafort, whose work as a political consultant is at the heart of the special counsel’s case against him, is identified as having facilitated the contract for the U.S. law firm. </s> Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team raised the prospect of issuing a grand jury subpoena to compel President Donald Trump to testify as part of the Russia probe, the president’s former attorney said Tuesday.

Attorney John Dowd told The Associated Press that Mueller’s team broached the subject in March during a meeting with Trump’s legal team while they were negotiating the terms of a possible interview with the president.

The meeting marked the first time the special counsel’s office raised the possibility of compelling Trump to testify as part of the ongoing investigation. Mueller is probing not only Russian election interference and possible coordination with Trump associates but possible obstruction of justice by Trump.

Dowd’s comments come more than a month after he resigned from the legal team, and they provide a new window into the nature of the Trump legal team’s interactions with the special counsel, who the president has increasingly tried to undermine through public attacks.

On Tuesday, Trump said it was “disgraceful” that a list of proposed questions drafted in response to Mueller’s negotiations with the legal team was “leaked” to the news media.

The New York Times late Monday published around four dozen questions compiled by Trump’s lawyers during negotiations with Mueller’s investigators earlier this year over the prospect of a presidential interview. Mueller is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, whether Trump’s campaign was involved and if the president obstructed justice after the campaign.

The Times report said Trump’s lawyers compiled the questions into a list and that document was “provided to The Times by a person outside Mr. Trump’s legal team.”

The questions range from Trump’s motivations for firing FBI Director James Comey a year ago to contacts Trump’s campaign had with Russians. Although Mueller’s team has indicated to Trump’s lawyers that he’s not considered a target, investigators remain interested in whether the president’s actions constitute obstruction of justice and want to interview him about several episodes in office. They have not yet made a decision about an interview.

Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow declined to comment to the AP, as did White House lawyer Ty Cobb.

In his tweet, Trump said there were “no questions on Collusion” and, as he as many times before, called Mueller’s investigation a “Russian witch hunt.” He said collusion with the Russians “never existed.”

In a second tweet, Trump said: “It would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened.”

The questions do appear to indicate that Mueller is looking into possible collusion. Some touch on Russian meddling and whether the Trump campaign coordinated in any way with the Kremlin. In one question obtained by the Times, Mueller asks what Trump knew about campaign staff, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, reaching out to Moscow.

Mueller has brought several charges against Manafort already, including money laundering and bank fraud. None of the charges relate to allegations of Russian election interference and possible coordination with Trump associates, and Manafort has denied having anything to do with such an effort.

One question asks what discussions Trump may have had regarding “any meeting with Mr. Putin,” referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Another question asks what the president may have known about a possible attempt by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to set up a back channel with Russia before Trump’s inauguration.

Many of the questions obtained by the Times center on the obstruction issue, including his reaction to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal from the Russia investigation, a decision Trump has angrily criticized.

The queries also touch on Trump’s businesses and his discussions with his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, about a possible Moscow real estate deal. Cohen’s business dealings are part of a separate FBI investigation.

Additional questions center on Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his discussions on sanctions against Russia with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition. Flynn is now cooperating with Mueller’s investigators.

“What did you know about phone calls that Mr. Flynn made with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, in late December 2016?” reads one question. Another asks if there were any efforts to reach out to Flynn “about seeking immunity or possible pardon.”

Flynn was fired Feb. 13, 2017, after White House officials said he had misled them about his Russian contacts during the transition period by saying that he had not discussed sanctions.

The following day, according to memos written by Comey, Trump cleared the Oval Office of other officials and encouraged Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn.

Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
John Dowd, the most senior lawyer advising U.S. President Donald Trump on allegations of Russian electoral interference, resigns.