A 20-page confidential letter from President Trump's legal team leaked to the New York Times argues that President Trump could not have obstructed justice at any point during his presidency due to his Constitutional authority, and that he cannot be compelled to testify in front of Special Counsel Robert Mueller due to his Constitutional powers as President.

The letter, crafted by Trump's legal team, reveals that the White House has been waging a quiet campaign for several months to prevent Mueller from trying to subpoena  the president - contending that because the Constitution empowers him to "if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon," Trump could not have illegally obstucted any aspect of the investigation into potential collusion between his campaign and Russia during the 2016 US election. 

Mr. Trump's defense is a wide-ranging interpretation of presidential power. In saying he has the authority to end a law enforcement inquiry or pardon people, his lawyers ambiguously left open the possibility that they were referring only to the investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, which he is accused of pressuring the F.B.I. to drop — or perhaps the one Mr. Mueller is pursuing into Mr. Trump himself as well.