Trump attorney Jay Sekulow says president's tweets aren't obstruction

Jay Sekulow, a personal attorney for President Donald Trump, defended the president’s statement on Twitter that his son's meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer two years ago in search of damaging information on Hillary Clinton was “totally legal.”

“The question is how would it be illegal?” Sekulow said on ABC’s “This Week,” when asked by host George Stephanopoulos about the meeting's legality. “The real question here is would a meeting of that nature ... constitute a violation of the law. ...The question is what law, statute, or rule or regulation has been violated, and nobody has pointed to one.”

Stephanopoulos noted that attorneys and lawmakers have pointed to several laws that could have been violated by Donald Trump Jr.'s 2016 meeting with the Russian attorney, including “conspiracy to defraud the United States.”

Sekulow also criticized the idea that Trump's tweet Wednesday urging Attorney General Jeff Sessions to "stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now" was evidence of obstruction of justice. Trump was referencing the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller into ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

"Obstruction of justice by tweet is absurd," Sekulow said on "This Week."

Asked if the president’s son had met with Mueller or had been given any indication that he was part of the special counsel’s sweeping probe, Sekulow said: "I don't represent Don Jr., but I will tell you I have no knowledge at all of Don Jr. being told that he's a target of any investigation, and I have no knowledge of him being interviewed by the special counsel."

Sekulow said the president’s personal legal team is working as “expeditiously as possible” to determine whether Trump should sit down for an interview with Mueller.

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“The president has been clear that he wants to interview, I will tell you his legal team is concerned,” Sekulow said, citing concerns about the nature of the questions that might be asked of Trump.

The probe, and whether Russia might interfere with the 2018 midterm elections, dominated the Sunday morning talk shows with top administration officials defending the president, calling the issue a "hoax."

"I think what he's saying by the hoax is the idea that somehow the Russians directed and controlled his campaign or direct and control his administration, that there was some conspiracy or some violation of U.S. law in 2016," national security advisor John Bolton said on "Fox News Sunday." "The hoax is the idea that the Trump campaign was a beneficiary of a concerted effort together with the Russians to affect the 2016 election."

Kellyanne Conway, senior counselor to the president, said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that "when the president says Russia hoax, that he is rebutting the idea "that somehow Russian meddling in the 2016 election was successful in changing a single vote or indeed the electoral outcome."

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) said on "Fox News Sunday" that the "best thing that could happen" for Trump is to let Mueller complete his investigation.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a ranking member of the House intelligence committee, said on CBS' "Face the Nation," that "I think there’s plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy in plain sight."

"I do think that the president continues to cast doubt on whether he accepts the fundamental conclusion that Russia intervened, whether there was a conspiracy or not," he said.

Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman,  said on CNN's "State of the Union," that Trump "should be straightforward with the American people about the threat to our election process that Russia, or [Russian President Vladimir] Putin in particular, is engaged in."