"I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director!" President Trump tweeted Friday. The natural interpretation of that statement is that the president is, in fact, under investigation — but Trump attorney Jay Sekulow said Sunday that is not the case.
"If the president is innocent, why is he afraid of this investigation?" asked NBC's Chuck Todd in a Meet the Press interview. "He's not afraid of this investigation. There is no investigation," Sekulow replied, adding, "There is not an investigation of the president of the United States, period."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sekulow made similar arguments in another Sunday interview with CNN's Jake Tapper. "So here's what you have," he told a skeptical Tapper. "The president issued that tweet, that social media statement, based on a fake report, a report with no documented sources, from The Washington Post."
Sekulow may be referring to this Wednesday Post article which cites five unnamed sources to report that the "special counsel overseeing 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 President Trump attempted to obstruct justice" — a story with which Trump's post seemed to concur.
Watch an excerpt of Sekulow's NBC interview below. Bonnie Kristian
-
How to invest in the artificial intelligence boomThe Explainer Artificial intelligence is the biggest trend in technology, but there are fears that companies are overvalued
-
The Week Unwrapped: Are British rappers the world’s best?Podcast Plus can the Maldives quit smoking? And can whales lead us to immortality?
-
The week’s best photosIn Pictures A leap through the leaves, a typhoon's aftermath, and more
-
ABC News to pay $15M in Trump defamation suitSpeed Read The lawsuit stemmed from George Stephanopoulos' on-air assertion that Trump was found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll
-
Judge blocks Louisiana 10 Commandments lawSpeed Read U.S. District Judge John deGravelles ruled that a law ordering schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms was unconstitutional
-
ATF finalizes rule to close 'gun show loophole'Speed Read Biden moves to expand background checks for gun buyers
-
Hong Kong passes tough new security lawSpeed Read It will allow the government to further suppress all forms of dissent
-
France enshrines abortion rights in constitutionspeed read It became the first country to make abortion a constitutional right
-
Texas executes man despite contested evidenceSpeed Read Texas rejected calls for a rehearing of Ivan Cantu's case amid recanted testimony and allegations of suppressed exculpatory evidence
-
Supreme Court wary of state social media regulationsSpeed Read A majority of justices appeared skeptical that Texas and Florida were lawfully protecting the free speech rights of users
-
Greece legalizes same-sex marriageSpeed Read Greece becomes the first Orthodox Christian country to enshrine marriage equality in law
