President Trump – in his written answers to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's questions – said Roger Stone did not talk to him about WikiLeaks and no one told him about the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton.
CNN:
One source described the President's answers without providing any direct quotes and said the President made clear he was answering to the best of his recollection.
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The President's lawyers previously told CNN the answers would match his public statements. Still, these written answers could be subject to criminal charges if false.
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According to many lawyers who have experience in cases such as this, adding the caveat that he has no recollection, as the President apparently did with these written answers to Mueller, is standard procedure as a way to try to shield a client should their recollections be challenged.
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Trump ... told The Associated Press in an interview last year, "When WikiLeaks came out ... never heard of WikiLeaks, never heard of it. When WikiLeaks came out, all I was just saying is, 'Well, look at all this information here, this is pretty good stuff.'"
On the 2016 Trump Tower meeting, the President has publicly said he didn't know about the meeting.
"I did NOT know of the meeting with my son, Don Jr," Trump tweeted in July.
The President's son told lawmakers he did not tell his father about the meeting in advance. He said he took the meeting to listen to what the Russians had to offer on Clinton.
Before the answers were submitted, Mueller had asked Trump's lawyers for call logs and visitor logs related to Stone from Trump Tower, CNN reported earlier this month. The request this late in the investigation surprised Trump's legal team.
Another question Mueller asked the president to answer in writing concerned the questionable, pro-Russia party platform change Republicans made at the National Convention in Cleveland.
On July 18, party insiders took the unusual step of watering down its formal position on whether the U.S. should help protect Ukraine from Russian incursions – a move viewed as a surprising concession to the Russian government at a time of tension in Ukraine.
The platform change took place during the Republican convention organized by then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Manafort had previously worked for a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party.
Sources tell ABC News the president told Mueller he was not aware of the platform change to the best of his recollection. That would be consistent with his answer to a question about the matter to ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos during the summer of 2016.
“I wasn't involved in that. Honestly, I was not involved,” Trump said at the time.
Exclusive: Two key answers from Trump to Mueller (CNN)
Mueller asked Trump about 2016 RNC platform change regarding Ukraine: Sources (ABC News)