President Donald Trump today said that he is willing to testify before Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is probing alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, but wants assurance of fair treatment.
In a brief interaction with reporters on the White House lawns before leaving for Dallas in Texas, Trump raised question on the impartiality of Mueller's team, alleging that investigators were mostly Democrats.
In the past, the US President had accused the opposition Democrats of a witch hunt.
He also pointed out that Mueller had worked as the FBI director under President Barack Obama.
"The problem with this sitting is: You have a group of investigators, and they say that I am not a target. I'm not a target. But you have a group of investigators that are all Democrats.
"In some cases, they went to the Hillary Clinton celebration that turned out to be a funeral. So you have all these investigators; they're Democrats. In all fairness, Bob Mueller worked for Obama for eight years," said the US president.
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Stressing that he would love to speak to Mueller, Trump said "I would say this: I would love to speak. I would love to. Nobody wants to speak more than me -- in fact, against my lawyers, because most lawyers, they never speak on anything.
"I would love to speak, because we've done nothing wrong. There was no collusion with the Russians. There was nothing. There was no obstruction, Trump said, adding that I have to find out we're going to be treated fairly...right now it's a pure witch hunt.
According to media reports, Mueller, a former FBI director, has sought to question Trump.
Early this week, The New York Times published a set of leaked questions that the Special Counsel wants to ask Trump.
If you fight back, because you people say something wrong, or they say something wrong, or they leak, which they've been doing; if you fight back, they say, oh, that's obstruction of justice. If somebody says something wrong, and you fight back, they say that's obstruction of justice. It's nonsense," he argued.
I would love to speak. I would love to go. Nothing I want to do more, because we did nothing wrong. We ran a great campaign. We won easily. We won that easily: 306 to -- I think, it was 223. We won it easily. That was a great victory. That was a great day for this country," Trump said.
This week, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has joined Trump as his personal attorney in the Mueller investigation case.
Describing Guiliani as "great guy", Trump said, "Rudy is a great guy...he's working hard, learning the subject matter. He knows it's a witch hunt, that's what he knows. He's seen a lot of them. He said he's never seen anything so horrible,
"It's actually very simple, there has been a lot of misinformation really."