Trump’s lawyer: ‘I don’t tell him what to write’
President Trump’s lawyer said he does not give his client advice when it comes to using Twitter.
“I’m the lawyer,” Jay Sekulow, an attorney on Trump’s outside legal team, told “Fox & Friends” on Monday. “I don’t tell him what to write or not what to write.”
Sekulow spent part of his weekend trying to explain the president’s tweeted assertion that he is being investigated in the federal probe into Russia’s interference into the 2016 presidential election.
“I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director!” Trump wrote to his millions of followers Friday. “Witch Hunt.”
I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 16, 2017
But Sekulow said Sunday the tweet was a reaction to a Washington Post report and not an acknowledgment by the president that he is a target of a federal probe.
“The president is not under investigation by the special counsel,” Sekulow said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The president has not been and is not under investigation.”
“So the president said, ‘I am under investigation,’ even though he isn’t under investigation?” a confused-looking Jake Tapper asked Sekulow on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“That response on social media was in response to the Washington Post piece — it’s that simple,” Sekulow replied. “The president issued that tweet, that social media statement, based on a fake report, a report with no documented sources, in the Washington Post.”
Related: Trump lawyer: His tweet about ‘being investigated’ did not confirm probe
On “Fox & Friends,” Sekulow pointed to an on-air report by ABC News senior justice correspondent Pierre Thomas, who said sources told him that Mueller has “plans to talk to some people in the administration” about Trump’s possible obstruction, but that “he’s not yet made that momentous decision to go for a full-scale investigation.”
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of Trump’s staunchest supporters, said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that the president’s “compulsion to counterattack” doesn’t serve him well.
“I don’t think that tweet helped him,” Gingrich said.
Sekulow was asked by “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade why he hasn’t instructed Trump not to tweet when “so much is on the line.”
“I’m not going to discuss with you legal advice I have or I have not given my client,” Sekulow replied. “I will say this: The president does utilize Twitter.”
Also read: 140 characters in search of an editor: The tweets that will haunt Trump
He reiterated that Trump’s tweet was in response to the Post story, which “had five anonymous sources.”
“Can you imagine if the president didn’t have the opportunity to respond?” Sekulow said. “He should have the opportunity to respond.”
Earlier on the show, Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway said the multiple investigations into Russia’s meddling is preventing Trump from “moving on with policies and solutions of the day.”
“We’re starting to waste tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money on this endeavor,” she said. “I think this is part of the resistance and the obstruction.”
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