Posted on 06/18/2017 7:34:16 AM PDT by MaxistheBest
An attorney for President Trump was adamant on Sunday that the president is not under investigation, despite the presidents tweets this week referring to one as a "witch hunt."
Let me be clear here, said Jay Sekulow, a member of the presidents legal team, on NBC's Meet The Press. The president is not and has not been under investigation for obstruction."
On Friday morning, President 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 wasnt 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 info to the Washington Post, he said, referring to the Posts report this week that Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian interference in the election, now also includes a look at whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice.
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.
Sekulow on Sunday also acknowledged that the president was fully aware that if in fact he took this action, he would see a lengthening" of the amount of time it would take to get through the Russia investigation if James Comey was removed as FBI director, but still decided to move forward with firing Comey because he "thought it was in the best interest of the American people."
Also on Sunday's Meet The Press, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla, noted that one thing weve 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. 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 presidents actions wont prevent any of the investigations from proceeding, and that getting to the bottom of what happened would benefit all involved, including President Trump.
This is is going to move forward, he said. We are going to get the full truth out there. I believe this is the thing that could happen for the president.
You're assuming the leaks are coming from Mueller's office.
I'm assuming they're not. In fact, I'm assuming that they're not even "leaks" because they're completely false.
This suggests to me that they're just made up out of thin air and are ultimately aimed at discrediting the media outlets that report on them. This suggests to me that they're coming from Trump allies in Washington.
I’ll second that easily, especially about there will be NO CR.
Thank You, Thank You for posting this and the link. Listened to the interview and read the transcript and there is nothing about Trump firing Comey BECAUSE of the Russian investigation. It’s a completely made up story by the Media. I hope this transcript gets posted everywhere.
Sorry, but I disagree with that. He shouldn't go on multiple Sunday morning TV shows and be so adamant that there is NO investigation, just based on a hunch, in case there possibly is one. He puts his credibility at stake, and by extension, President Trump's. Susan Rice ring a bell?
He hasn't stepped down as Deputy AG, and hasn't even recused himself. This would clearly mean that the Comey firing isn't even something that's being investigated by Mueller, who must report periodically to Rosenstein on the status of his investigation.
That would appear to be making some major assumptions that both Rosenstein and Mueller are beyond reproach, and doing everything by the book. Rosenstein's appointment of Mueller, who had an innate conflict of interest due to his relationship with Comey, tends to indicate that Rosenstein is fallible. Mueller has a lot of questionable behavior in his past as well, especially under the Obama administration, where he botched the IRS investigation, etc.
I don't think Sekulow would have stuck his neck out unless he had been given some information by someone in the DoJ like Rosenstein that there was no investigation. Hopefully that's what happened, and there won't ever be an obstruction investigation. Will be interesting to see how the Washington Post fires back later today.
Reminder: there are 15 zillion GOP conservatives who hate Trump. Trump demands companies bring jobs back to the US even if that is harmful to their bottom line. This is not a conservative position. This is not a GOP position. This is a Trump position.
Ivanka is 100% loyal to Trump. She will advise him to do what is in his best interests.
Loyalty vs ideology. Ideology is a dime a dozen. You can shake a Washington haystack and have 15 ideologues drop out at your feet. You’ll never find loyalty that way. It’s far more rare and far more valuable.
He should listen to Ivanka every single day and ignore most else.
Trump has this
It's not in that text you posted, which in when he was first asked, but it is not complete. In the full interview, he states that at the moment he decided to fire Comey, he was thinking about Russia. Go to 0:46 in this clip:
I don't think Sekulow would have stuck his neck out unless he had been given some information by someone in the DoJ like Rosenstein that there was no investigation.
This statement is completely incoherent in the context of the prior point you made. On the one hand you suggest that Sekulow should not assume that Mueller and Rosenstein are beyond reproach, then you say that Sekulow should trust someone like Rosenstein if he's told that there is no investigation.
Rosenstein actually DID tell Trump (and the world) that there is no investigation into obstruction of justice, but legally he could not do this directly or even through back channels. Instead, he authored the press release on June 15th that told everyone not to believe what they read in the media ... because the Department of Justice was legally prohibited from confirming or denying any stories about an ongoing investigation. He was basically telling people to turn off CNN and stop reading the Washington Post because they were being fed a bullsh!t narrative about the whole Mueller investigation.
What about the NY TIMES?
If it turns out there isn't an obstruction investigation, you may be right about the sources for the article. It's not a crime to lie to the media. However, putting out a fake story that the President is under investigation, which leads him to send out a tweet seemingly confirming that, which gets blasted across the airwaves for a couple of days, doesn't really seem like a great strategy if you're just trying to prove the media falsely reported something, that likely won't be reported, and therefore only ever appreciated by core supporters who knew that already anyway.
Yup...Tell CNN that they will be banned from any press conferences until their reporters tell us who their sources are. Like that Jim Acosta, who wrote that President Trump never went into the room where Scalia was in the hospital...fake news...ban them until they provide names. Same with the rest of the MSM.
The public will be right behind him on this issue.
HUGE DITTOS!!!!
Then what the hell is being investigated ???????????????????
While I will avoid the barnyard language that this situation deserves, I don't know how you sort out the deep state short of sterilizing the swamp with a neutron bomb.
I don’t understand your point.
I would imagine that Sessions is trying to get through all of Lynch's stuff, Comey’s stuff, and on down the line, plus all the departments that come under the A.G. Department...
It's like a spider's web and the spider: “Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly”...
As for what Trump likely had in mind when he used the phrase "this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story," later on he makes a remark, "I'm not talking about campaigns. I'm not talking about anything else. I'm not under investigation."
I don't know what is in your mind, what you are ascribing to Trump, with your "Trump says he was thinking about Russia," but I do know how I take Trump's remarks, viewing the interview in totality.
Logic can and should be used to make hypothesis. But he stated in emphatically there was no investigation as a fact, rather than stating it was a strong possibility, and giving the reasons you have posted. If it turns out it is just a hypothesis, and his hypothesis is completely wrong, his credibility would take a huge if not fatal shot.
On the one hand you suggest that Sekulow should not assume that Mueller and Rosenstein are beyond reproach, then you say that Sekulow should trust someone like Rosenstein if he's told that there is no investigation.
That's not what I said at all, I said you were making the assumption that they were above reproach, and following DoJ protocol correctly, in order to further assume there is no investigation.
Rosenstein actually DID tell Trump (and the world) that there is no investigation into obstruction of justice, but legally he could not do this directly or even through back channels. Instead, he authored the press release on June 15th that told everyone not to believe what they read in the media.
Sorry again, but I'm not seeing that. Rosenstein's statement was completely nondescript with regard to the context. Could it have been about the WP article regarding obstruction? Possibly, but that WP came out the day before, and the night Rosenstein's statement came out the immediate speculation was that it was referring to the claim that Jared Kushner was under investigation, which had just come out that same day.
I'd like to believe that the President isn't under investigation, and as of now I take Sekulow for his word, but until we know that it's more than just "logic" and "assumptions" I'm afraid the matter isn't completely settled.
Don’t be naive. You’re not not going to change the GOP’s lies, collusion and corruption. The American people were suckers for decades, continuing to vote for these same AH’s. They were conned and hoodwinked for decades yet continued voting for these same AH’s year in and year out. Same faces, same people, decade after decade. Now it’s time to simply get rid of them, their lobbyist and influence peddlers et al.
Again, sarcasm is wasted on Libtards.
Uh, no, it's not. Here's the quote from the video:
"When I decided to do it, I said to myself, 'this Russia Trump thing is a made up story, an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election'..."
Go back to 0:35 to see the "it' he's talking about is firing Comey. So unfortunately he did state when he decided to do it, he was thinking about the Russian investigation.
I do know how I take Trump's remarks, viewing the interview in totality.
His first part of the answer, that you originally quoted, was great. He should have left it at that.
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