President Trump is not under investigation for obstruction of justice, one of his attorneys says.
WASHINGTON — A member of President Trump’s legal team repeatedly insisted that Trump is not under investigation for obstruction of justice but acknowledged he could not know for certain during combative Sunday television interviews.
“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,” lawyer Jay Sekulow said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” part of a blitz of bookings on the Sunday morning talk shows.
That assessment, repeated on three other broadcasts, was at odds with a Washington Post report last week and seemingly with a tweet by Trump himself Friday.
During a later appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Sekulow conceded that he could not say with absolute certainty that Trump is not being investigated because he cannot read the mind of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The Post reported last week that Mueller, who was appointed to oversee the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election, is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice.
Trump wrote Friday in a tweet about the probe that “I am being investigated.”
On Sunday, Sekulow sought to explain that Trump was using Twitter to address the Post report and was not actually confirming that he is being investigated, despite writing those words.
Sekulow cited recent congressional testimony by fired FBI Director James Comey in which Comey said he had told Trump on a few occasions that Trump was not personally under investigation in relation to the Russia probe. Those conversations, however, occurred before Trump fired Comey, who was helping lead the investigation, and before the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to oversee the probe.
Last week’s Post story cited five people briefed on the interview requests, who said the current director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, head of the National Security Agency, Mike Rogers, and Rogers’ recently departed deputy, Richard Ledgett, agreed to be interviewed by Mueller’s investigators.
The five people spoke on the condition of anonymity .
Sekulow referred to the Post story as “a fake report” during an appearance Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“We stand by our story, which President Trump confirmed Friday in a tweet acknowledging he is under investigation for obstruction of justice,” Post Executive Editor Martin Baron said in a statement.