Special Counsel Robert Mueller is looking to reach a conclusion about possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 election and produce indictments by fall, a report on Tuesday said.
Mueller and his team are hoping to turn their full attention to collusion after resolving other matters, including whether Trump sought to obstruct justice into the probe, Bloomberg reported.
The special counsel’s office declined to comment.
Investigators have found at least 13 people associated with Trump’s campaign have had suspicious contacts with Russians, including some that have already been known for months.
They include Attorney General Jeff Sessions having conversations with a Russian ambassador, former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact with Russians and Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 with a Kremlin-linked lawyer who claimed to have dirt on Hillary Clinton.
The report said Mueller and his team of prosecutors have interviewed or sought information about Trump associates or campaign aides known to have met with Russians during the election.
Trump has denied any collusion and has called out the Mueller probe as a “witch hunt.”
In the little more than a year of the probe’s existence, 20 people three companies have been charged and five people have pleaded guilty, including Flynn.