In an update on several developments related to the Mueller investigation, CNN reports the special counsel is looking at when Roger Stone may have visited Trump Tower in New York City.
As recently as a month ago, Mueller asked Trump's lawyers to produce call and visitor logs related to Stone from Trump Tower in New York, according to a source briefed on the matter. The request at this late stage of the investigation came as something of a surprise to lawyers involved, given that the Mueller team has been focused for months on Stone and his activities before the 2016 election.
Among the questions Mueller has asked the President to provide written responses on are queries about Stone and his communications with then-candidate Trump, according to a source briefed on the matter.
CNN also says Mueller has started writing his final report even though Stone's fate remains publicly unknown and President Trump still has not turned in answers to Mueller's questions.
The President and his lawyers have been aiming to return answers to Mueller's questions later this month, according to one source familiar with the matter. No final decision on an in-person interview has been made.
But Trump's legal team and other lawyers representing witnesses in the investigation expect that the President's responses to Mueller could be one of the final pieces of the 18-month-long probe before the investigators present a report on their findings.
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On Thursday, Stone told CNN, "I never visited Trump Tower after August of 2015 until the President-elect asked me to visit him after the election." Stone said he visited just one time around late November of 2016 or early December, and that this was his last visit to Trump Tower.
The conversation during that one visit was "mostly congratulatory. It was innocuous. Nothing heavy."
In terms of phone calls in 2016 with Trump, he says they were "occasional and in all cases initiated by him. And we never discussed WikiLeaks."
The White House will be adding to its legal team under incoming counsel Pat Cipollone, expecting to handle both an influx of investigations at the hands of the new House Democratic majority and next steps in the Mueller probe.
One of the important questions the new White House legal team is expected to have to address is whether any of Mueller's findings can be shared with either Congress or the public given executive privilege concerns, which could block release of some or all of Mueller's work.
Under Justice Department regulations, Mueller is required to produce a "confidential report" at the end of his investigation, which includes "the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel."
But the regulations do not require that Mueller's report be released to the public, and with Whitaker taking over, it is not clear whether he will choose to release it at all, or in what form.
Trump reviewing his answers to Mueller as he changes who oversees the Russia investigation (CNN)