Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, on Sunday said he had “no idea” what Trump was trying to do with a tweet that appeared to confirm he is personally under federal investigation.
“Trump has a compulsion to counterattack and is very pugnacious. I don’t think it serves him well. I don’t think that tweet helped him,” Gingrich said on ABC’s “This Week.”
He said Trump was “infuriated” by “this Russia baloney,” apparently referring to the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Asked whether Trump was confirming the existence of an investigation into himself using the tweet, Gingrich replied: “I have no idea what he thought he was doing.”
The Washington Post reported last week that Robert Mueller, special counsel overseeing the federal probe into Russian meddling, took over an investigation into the possibility that Trump obstructed justice. Trump appeared to confirm that he was under investigation in a tweet posted Friday.
Jay Sekulow, an attorney on Trump’s legal team, pushed back on that interpretation on Sunday.
“The response from the President, using social media, was about that story,” he said. “But 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.”