Trump's lawyer: "The president is not under investigation" for obstructing justice, then blamed Twitter

On multiple Sunday news shows Trump's lawyer insisted the president wasn't being investigated, and blamed Twitter

Published June 18, 2017 3:06PM (EDT)

In multiple bizarre Sunday morning interviews an attorney for President Donald Trump insisted that the president is "not under investigation by the special counsel" despite reports that Trump is under investigation for allegedly obstructing justice for firing of former FBI Director James Comey. The president also sent a tweet on Friday that explicitly stated he was aware that he is under investigation.

"I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt," Trump tweeted.

During an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" Jay Sekulow, a member of Trump's legal team, said the president was specifically tweeting about the reports that he was under investigation and insisted that Trump had not been notified of any investigation. "The tweet from the president was in response to the five anonymous sources that were purportedly leaking information to the Washington Post about a potential investigation of the president," Sekulow told Chuck Todd.

"But let me be very clear here, as it has been since the beginning, the president is not and has not been under investigation for obstruction," he added.

During an interview on CNN's "State of the Union" Sekulow explained to Jake Tapper that Trump wasn't able to clarify that he was referring to the Washington Post reports in his tweets because of the "limitation" Twitter has on characters used in a tweet. "So here's what you have," Sekulow said. "The president issued that tweet, that social media statement, based on a fake report, a report with no documented sources." He then stated again that Trump was not being investigated.

"So there can be no confusion. No confusion. The president is not under investigation," Sekulow told Tapper.

However in an interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" Sekulow admitted that he doesn't actually know for certain if Trump is under investigation or not because he can't read the mind of special counsel Robert Mueller. "But I have not been notified. No one has been notified that he is [under investigation]," Sekulow said.

Sekulow also appeared on "Face the Nation" where he continued to use the argument that Trump is not under investigation because they hadn't received any notice that he was.


By Charlie May

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