Lawyer in probe blunder
He’s beingb investigated for taking the action that [the DOJ] recommended him to take. — Jay Sekulow
A member of President Trump’s personal legal team, on a mission to deny that his boss is under federal investigation, did just the opposite on Sunday — twice saying, “He’s being investigated.”
Attorney Jay Sekulow made the remarks during a contentious back-andforth on “Fox News Sunday,” one of a series of shows on which he repeatedly insisted that Trump wasn’t under investigation by Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Sekulow said Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey last month was “based on numerous events, including recommendations from his attorney general and the deputy attorney general’s office.
“He takes the action that they also, by the way, recommended, and now he’s being investigated by the Department of Justice. Because the special counsel, under the special counsel regulations, reports still to the Department of Justice, not an independent counsel,” Sekulow said.
“So, he’s being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general and deputy attorney general recommended him to take, by the agency who recommended the termination. So that’s the constitutional threshold question here.”
When host Chris Wallace noted that Sekulow had just admitted Trump was under investigation, Sekulow accused Wallace of “putting words in my mouth, when I’ve been crystal clear that the president is not and has not been under investigation.”
Wallace said “the tape will speak for itself.”
Sekulow’s apparent slip-up occurred during his fourth of four interviews taped Sunday morning, a source familiar with his schedule told The Post.
On Friday, Trump tweeted, “I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt.”
Sekulow told “Fox News Sunday” and three other shows that Trump’s tweet was based solely on a Washington Post report, and he insisted Trump hadn’t been and wasn’t under investigation by Mueller.
On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” host John Dickerson asked Sekulow how he knew that.
“Because we’ve received no notice of investigation,” Sekulow answered. “There has been no notification from the special counsel’s office that the president is under investigation.”
A former Justice Department official told The Post that Trump wouldn’t be told if he was under investigation, unless Mueller was following “some special protocol.”