--- title: White House Doesn't Rule Out Putin's Offer to Help Mueller description: The White House declined to rule out Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer of assistance in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe. canonical: https://time.com/5342323/white-house-putin-mueller/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-07-18T20:32:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T20:53:24.973Z article:section: Politics og:title: White House Declines to Rule Out Putin's Offer of Assistance og:description: Putin said he would let U.S. prosecutors question Russian nationals og:url: https://time.com/5342323/white-house-putin-mueller/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt032465043b933142/698935a722fb8567f6e262fd/gettyimages-1001252388.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders Holds Briefing at White House og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: White House Declines to Rule Out Putin's Offer of Assistance twitter:description: Putin said he would let U.S. prosecutors question Russian nationals twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt032465043b933142/698935a722fb8567f6e262fd/gettyimages-1001252388.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # White House Declines to Rule Out Vladimir Putin's Offer of Assistance in Mueller Probe > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Jul 18, 2018 8:32 PM UTC  White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders holds a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House July 18, 2018 in Washington, D.C. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders holds a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House July 18, 2018 in Washington, D.C. Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Jul 18, 2018 8:32 PM UTC The White House on Wednesday declined to rule out Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer of assistance in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying an announcement would come when President Trump has reached a decision on the matter. “The President’s \[going to\] meet with his team and we’ll let you know when we have an announcement on that,” Sanders told reporters during the daily press briefing, her first in over a week. When pressed again, Sanders acknowledged that Putin and Trump had discussed the offer during the summit in Helsinki, Finland, but said that no decision had been reached. Speaking at a joint press conference with Trump on Monday, Putin offered to allow members of Mueller’s team into Russia to interrogate the 12 Russian nationals recently indicted for interfering in U.S. elections. But Putin said America had to reciprocate by allowing Russian law enforcement to question people they deemed suspicious in the U.S. Putin specifically mentioned British financier Bill Browder on Monday as one of the possible subjects of such questioning. Browder was refused entry into Russia in 2005, and now works as an activist investigating Russian state corruption. Browder wrote [in an op-ed for TIME](http://time.com/5340545/bill-browder-vladimir-putin-magnitsky-act-donald-trump/) after the press conference that it didn’t matter that Putin was extending the offer to Trump, because, as a citizen of the United Kingdom, he falls under the jurisdiction of British Prime Minister Theresa May. But on Tuesday, the Russian attorney general’s office said it was poised [to send the U.S.](https://sputniknews.com/russia/201807171066437215-russia-browder-us-mcfaul-questioning/) a list of people it wants to question in relation to Browder, including former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5342323/white-house-putin-mueller/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5342323/white-house-putin-mueller/"},"headline":"White House Declines to Rule Out Vladimir Putin's Offer of Assistance in Mueller Probe","datePublished":"2018-07-18T20:32:46.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T20:53:24.973Z","description":"Putin said he would let U.S. prosecutors question Russian nationals","url":"https://time.com/5342323/white-house-putin-mueller/","keywords":["White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt032465043b933142/698935a722fb8567f6e262fd/gettyimages-1001252388.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Abramson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt032465043b933142/698935a722fb8567f6e262fd/gettyimages-1001252388.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders Holds Briefing at White House","caption":"Sarah Sanders speaks to reporters in a news conference","creditText":"Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5342323/white-house-putin-mueller/","name":"White House Declines to Rule Out Vladimir Putin's Offer of Assistance in Mueller Probe"}}]}] ```