A series of tweets by US President Donald Trump about the investigation into contacts between his 2016 campaign and Russia prompted concerns on Sunday among both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham saying Trump could be wading into “peril” by commenting on the probe.
“I would just say this with the president: There’s an ongoing criminal investigation,” Graham said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”
“You tweet and comment regarding ongoing criminal investigations at your own peril,” he added.
On Sunday morning, Trump wrote on Twitter that he never asked former FBI Director James Comey to stop investigating Michael Flynn, the president’s former national security adviser- a statement at odds with an account Comey himself has given.
That tweet followed one on Saturday in which Trump said: “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President (Mike Pence) and the FBI.”
Legal experts and some Democratic lawmakers said if Trump knew Flynn lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and then pressured Comey not to investigate him, that could bolster a charge of obstruction of justice.
Trump’s attorney, John Dowd, told Reuters in an interview on Sunday that he had drafted the Saturday tweet and made a mistake when he composed it.
The mistake was I should have put the lying to the FBI in a separate line referencing his plea, Dowd said. “Instead, I put it together and it made all you guys go crazy. A tweet is a shorthand.”
Dowd said the first time the president knew for a fact that Flynn lied to the FBI was when he was charged.
Dowd also clouded the issue by saying that then-Acting US Attorney General Sally Yates informed White House counsel Don McGahn in January that Flynn told FBI agents the same thing he told Pence, and that McGahn reported his conversation with Yates to Trump. He said Yates did not characterize Flynns conduct as a legal violation.
Dowd said it was the first and last time he would craft a tweet for the president.
“I’ll take responsibility, he said. I’m sorry I misled people.
Yates did not respond to an email seeking comment, and a lawyer for McGahn did not respond to requests for comment.
The White House also did not immediately respond to are quest for comment.
