The White House on Thursday again pointed reporters to the President’s attorney for questions about when President Donald Trump knew that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn lied to the FBI.
When asked why questions about when Trump knew that information should be considered a legal matter, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump’s attorneys “feel this is a question that should be answered by them” and claimed she’d ask Trump’s attorney John Dowd to respond to reporters about the topic.
When pressed again about why it’s a legal matter, Sanders said she’s “going to listen to the attorneys on this one.”
“John Dowd will hopefully follow up with you in short order,” she said.
After Flynn was charged with one count of lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials while working for Trump’s transition team, Trump initially said the charges proved that there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia. He later tweeted that he fired Flynn because he lied to Vice President Mike Pence and the FBI, an admission that could characterize his request to then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the case against Flynn as obstruction of justice.
I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017
The White House later claimed that one of Trump’s lawyers erroneously wrote the tweet, not the President.