President Donald Trump has sent private messages through his lawyer to the special counsel assigned to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, USA Today reported Tuesday.
"He appreciates what Bob Mueller is doing,'' Trump's chief counsel John Dowd said. "He asked me to share that with him, and that's what I've done. The president has sent messages back and forth."
Trump has called the investigation "the greatest witch hunt in political history," and complained the probe was obscuring the accomplishments of his administration and obstructing his agenda.
Mueller, a former FBI director, was appointed in mid-May as special counsel to oversee the federal investigation of the Russian government's alleged interference, giving him plenty of room to explore potential collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
Jimmy Gurule, a former assistant attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration, told USA Today that Trump's communications with Mueller are a "striking" contradiction with his comments.
"It's an extreme position to go from hateful statements to this," Gurule said. "What would cause him to change his mind?"
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