House Investigating Whether Trump Lied To Mueller In U.S. Russia Probe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives is probing whether President Donald Trump lied in his written testimony submitted to then-U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of the completed federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, CNN said on Monday.

A House lawyer told a federal appeals court in Washington on Monday that lawmakers were examining whether Trump’s written answers to federal investigators were untruthful, CNN reported.

A spokeswoman for the House Judiciary Committee had no immediate comment.

Mueller submitted a report to U.S. Attorney General William Barr in March after completing a 22-month investigation that detailed Russia’s campaign of hacking and propaganda to boost Trump’s candidacy in the 2016 election as well as extensive contacts between Trump’s campaign and Moscow.

House lawyers disclosed the investigation into Trump’s written responses in September, saying in a court filing that materials from the Mueller report could show Trump was not honest about his knowledge of his campaign’s contacts with WikiLeaks, which published emails hacked from the Democratic Party.

The redacted Mueller report materials “have direct bearing on whether the president was untruthful, and further obstructed the special counsel’s investigation, when in providing written responses to the special counsel’s questions he denied being aware of any communications between his campaign and WikiLeaks,” the House lawyers said in the filing.

Last week, Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman, Rick Gates, suggested in testimony during a jury trial in a criminal case that Trump talked to longtime adviser Roger Stone about WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign.

Gates testified that after finishing a July 2016 call from Stone, Trump indicated that “more information would be coming,” in an apparent reference to WikiLeaks.

Gates’ testimony appeared to conflict with sworn written statements that Trump gave Mueller.

In Trump’s written responses to Mueller, he said he could not recall discussing WikiLeaks with Stone.

“I do not recall discussing WikiLeaks with him,” Trump wrote. “Nor do I recall being aware of Mr. Stone having discussed WikiLeaks with individuals associated with my campaign.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Bill Berkrot)