Inside Trump's refusal to testify in the Mueller probe

The date had been picked, the location too, and the plan was penciled in: President Donald Trump would be whisked from the White House to Camp David on a quiet winter Saturday to answer questions from special counsel Robert Mueller's team.

But as the January 27, 2018, date neared and Mueller provided the topics he wanted to discuss, Trump's lawyers balked. Attorney John Dowd then fired off a searing letter disputing Mueller's authority to question the president. The interview was off.

Nearly a year later, Trump has still not spoken directly to Mueller's team and may never.

Through private letters, tense meetings and considerable public posturing, the president's lawyers have engaged in a tangled, tortured back-and-forth with the special counsel to prevent the president from sitting down for a face-to-face with enormous political and legal consequences.

The prolonged negotiation speaks to the high stakes for Trump, Mueller's investigation of his campaign and the presidency. Any questioning of a president in a criminal investigation tests the limit of executive authority.

Putting this president on the record also tests his ability to stick to the facts and risks a constitutional showdown.

The process took a significant step forward this week when Trump's lawyers handed over the president's written answers to some of Mueller's questions. The arrangement was a hard-fought compromise.

Trump answered only questions about Russian interference in the 2016 election and not questions about whether he has tried to obstruct the special counsel's investigation. It's unclear whether Mueller intends to push for more either in writing or in person.

Special counsel spokesman Peter Carr declined comment.

Even those written answers were months in the making.

In the months following Mueller's May 2017 appointment, the White House pledged its cooperation, believing it the fastest way to end the investigation.

The administration produced thousands of documents demanded by the special counsel and made close Trump aides including his legal counsel, chief of staff and press secretary available for questioning. White House lawyer Ty Cobb said he expected the investigation to conclude by the end of that year.

But it soon became clear that Mueller would want to interview Trump, given his involvement in several events under scrutiny.

The president had fired FBI Director James Comey, harangued his attorney general over his recusal from the Russia investigation and dictated a misleading statement about a Trump Tower meeting involving his son and a Kremlin-connected lawyer.

But Trump lawyers Dowd and Jay Sekulow moved cautiously.

The last time a president is known to have been interviewed in a criminal investigation was nearly 15 years ago, and a commander-in-chief has not been subpoenaed before a grand jury since 1998, when President Bill Clinton was summoned in the Whitewater case.

Trump's lawyers were mindful such an interview would be a minefield for a president who often misstates the facts. They set out to avoid it however possible, even if it could lead to resisting a subpoena and bringing on a court fight over presidential power.

But first they tried to head off a request. Trump's lawyers staked out a bold constitutional argument, declaring they considered all his actions as president outside a prosecutor's bounds.

Mueller had no right to question the president on any of his decisions made at the White House, they argued, saying any outside scrutiny of those choices would curb a president's executive powers.

At the same time, they worked to undermine Mueller's case should he choose to challenge that argument.

They furnished a trove of White House documents about key moments in the investigation in hopes of undercutting any claim that he could only get the information he needed by questioning Trump, according to people familiar with the strategy.

Trump had other plans.

As his lawyers plotted to dig in against any interview, he pushed for one, believing it would exonerate him. In January, he burst into a reporters' briefing with chief of staff John Kelly and insisted he was eager to speak to Mueller.

He might do so in weeks, he said, "subject to my lawyers and all of that." "I would love to do that I'd like to do it as soon as possible," Trump said.

What he didn't mention was that his attorneys had already discussed, and scuttled, the planned interview with Mueller.

That process had even progressed to discussing logistics with Kelly, who had advised of ways White House officials could be ferried to Camp David without the press knowing.

But the interest cooled after Mueller team prosecutor Jim Quarles dictated over the phone 16 topics Mueller wanted to cover, including Trump's interactions with Comey, his knowledge of national security adviser Michael Flynn's interview with the FBI and his involvement in the Trump Tower statement.

Dowd responded that the answers could all be found in documents and witness statements provided to Mueller, according to a person familiar with the exchange. He then cancelled the interview and days later drafted a feisty letter contesting the interview's appropriateness and offering extensive explanations on the incidents in question.

The investigation has been "a considerable burden for the president and his office, has endangered the safety and security of our country, and has interfered with the president's ability to both govern domestically and conduct foreign affairs," Dowd wrote.

In the following months, Trump told some of his closest confidants that he still wanted to interview with Mueller, according to four White House officials and Republicans close to the White House who asked for anonymity because they were not permitted to publicly discuss private conversations.

The president repeatedly insisted he had done nothing wrong and believed he could convince Mueller of that.

He told one confidant last spring he was frustrated his lawyers didn't believe he should do it and snapped that he didn't understand what was taking so long, according to one Republican in contact with the White House.