Former Trump associate Michael Caputo isn't even currently a subject of the special counsel probe into Russia's 2016 election interference. Yet Caputo—who has worked with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort as well as longtime Trump confidants Roger Stone and Michael Cohen—told multiple reporters Wednesday that being questioned by Mueller's team was a deeply unsettling experience. The Buffalo News's Jerry Zremski writes:
Michael R. Caputo underwent an intense three hours of questioning from investigators from the office of special counsel Robert Mueller in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, and the East Aurora political consultant emerged sounding shaken.
"They have every bit of information you could possibly have on the Trump campaign," said Caputo, who worked for the Trump effort in late 2015 and early 2016, in a telephone interview with The Buffalo News. "They had a lot of questions I had no answers to. At times it was kind of frightening." [...] "They remembered things I didn't remember," he said. "They remembered things I thought I did in July that I had actually done in May."
Caputo, who has dismissed the investigation as a "witch hunt," said, "Every question they asked was relevant." Though the investigators never asked about Trump directly, they did ask about the roles of other key players, including Manafort, Stone, Cohen, WikiLeaks, DCLeaks, and Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0.
Caputo also told CNN's Manu Raju:
“It’s clear they are still really focused on Russia collusion. ... They know more about the Trump campaign than anyone who ever worked there.” (emphasis added)
”The Senate and the House are net fishing,” Caputo said. “The special counsel is spearfishing. They know what they are aiming at and are deadly accurate.”
Stunning.
And to The Atlantic's Natasha Bertrand on whether Trump should voluntarily agree to be interviewed:
“I have said from the beginning that the President should not sit for an interview with the Special Counsel - it’s fraught with peril,” Caputo tells me. “Today’s interview didn’t change my mind.”
Ultimately, many legal observers believe Trump won’t have a choice about being interviewed if Mueller issues him a subpoena. Unless Trump tries to blow up the entire investigation.
