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Trump Attorney: The President Is Not Under Investigation

An attorney for President Trump was adamant on Sunday that the president is not under investigation, despite the president’s tweets this week referring to one.
Image: President Donald Trump boards Air Force One before departing from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on June 9, 2017.
President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on June 9.Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

WASHINGTON — An attorney for President Donald Trump was adamant on Sunday that the president is not under investigation, despite the president's tweets this week referring to one as a "witch hunt."

"Let me be clear here," said Jay Sekulow, a member of the president's legal team, on NBC's "Meet The Press." "The president is not and has not been under investigation for obstruction."

On Friday morning, Trump sent a tweet that seemed to confirm that he was under scrutiny, writing, "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt."

But Sekulow claimed the president wasn't referring to an actual investigation in the message, but instead a news report about one.

"The tweet from the president was in response to the five anonymous sources purportedly leaking information to the Washington Post," he said, referring to the Post's report this week that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the election now also includes a look at whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice.

Sekulow claimed the president is not spending a lot of time composing the tweets, but defended them as a means of speaking directly to voters, saying "he's responding to what he's seeing in the media in a way in which he thinks is appropriate to talk to those people that put him in office."

"He's not afraid of the investigation — there is no investigation," Sekulow said, adding, "there is not an investigation of the President of the United States, period."

On "Face The Nation" on CBS, Sekulow clarified that he's so confident that there isn't any investigation into the president because they have not received any notification from the special counsel's office.

The attorney on "Meet The Press" Sunday also acknowledged that the president was aware that firing James Comey as FBI director could extend the entire time frame of the investigation into Russia.

"He said that if, in light of all of this, the removal of James Comey would lengthen the amount of time that this investigation would take — he thought it was in the best interest of the American people," Sekulow said. "He was fully aware that if in fact he took this action, he would see a lengthening or could see a lengthening of the process."

President Trump continued to refer to what he feels is a "witch hunt" against him in another slew of new tweets Sunday morning, writing that it is a distraction from the rest of his priorities: "The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt. Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm,.....massive regulation cuts, 36 new legislative bills signed, great new S.C.Justice, and Infrastructure, Healthcare and Tax Cuts in works!"

Also on Sunday's "Meet The Press," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., noted that "one thing we've learned from the testimony of multiple people now is the president is pretty fired up about this" and doesn't believe that he did anything wrong. And the president "wants people to say that," he said.

Rubio is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is doing its own probe into Russian election interference. He maintained that the president's actions won't prevent any of the investigations from proceeding, and that getting to the bottom of what happened would benefit all involved, including Trump.

"This is is going to move forward," he said. "We're going to get the full truth out there. And I repeat, I believe that is the best thing that can happen for the president and for this administration, is for everything to come out. And I believe that it will."