--- title: Russia Investigation: Questions Referred to Trump's Lawyer description: The White House will no longer take questions on former FBI Director James Comey's firing, referring them to an outside attorney instead canonical: https://time.com/4800211/sean-spicer-james-comey-russia-marc-kasowitz-donald-trump/ author: Aric Jenkins article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-31T20:48:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T05:11:53.401Z article:section: Politics og:title: White House Will No Longer Answer Questions About Russia and Comey's Firing og:description: The Press Secretary also addressed "covfefe" og:url: https://time.com/4800211/sean-spicer-james-comey-russia-marc-kasowitz-donald-trump/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbf490bf9ccd0539/6988cd5186f68e26316e4b18/gettyimages-682379228.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer Holds Daily Press Briefing og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: White House Will No Longer Answer Questions About Russia and Comey's Firing twitter:description: The Press Secretary also addressed "covfefe" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbf490bf9ccd0539/6988cd5186f68e26316e4b18/gettyimages-682379228.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The White House Will No Longer Answer Questions About James Comey's Firing and the Russia Investigation > Sponsored content. 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Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=26aec2c5-5fed-4cc3-886b-85301036cdf6&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) by [Aric Jenkins](https://time.com/author/aric-jenkins/) ## Aric Jenkins May 31, 2017 8:48 PM UTC  White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer answers questions during the daily news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House May 12, 2017 in Washington, DC White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer answers questions during the daily news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House May 12, 2017 in Washington, DC Win McNamee—Getty Images by [Aric Jenkins](https://time.com/author/aric-jenkins/) ## Aric Jenkins May 31, 2017 8:48 PM UTC The White House will no longer take questions on former FBI Director [James Comey’s firing](http://time.com/4787587/congress-russia-investigation-james-comey-fired-donald-trump/) and the Russia investigation, choosing instead to refer all press inquiries to President Donald Trump’s personal attorney. “Going forward, all questions on these matters will be referred to outside counsel, Marc Kasowitz,” Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday at an off-camera press briefing. It marks the first time the White House has publicly referred questions of this sort to Kasowitz, a longtime lawyer of Trump who was [tapped last week](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/marc-kasowitz-trump-russia/528147/) to represent the President regarding matters surrounding the Russia probe and potential legal fallout involving Comey. > [](https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/869991050030358528) Spicer also touched upon Trump’s perplexing tweet from Tuesday night in which he said [“covfefe.”](http://time.com/4799053/donald-trump-covfefe-twitter/) The seemingly made-up word made waves on social media as users struggled to figure out what the President meant from the term. “The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant,” the press secretary said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4800211/sean-spicer-james-comey-russia-marc-kasowitz-donald-trump/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4800211/sean-spicer-james-comey-russia-marc-kasowitz-donald-trump/"},"headline":"The White House Will No Longer Answer Questions About James Comey's Firing and the Russia Investigation","datePublished":"2017-05-31T20:48:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T05:11:53.401Z","description":"The Press Secretary also addressed \"covfefe\"","url":"https://time.com/4800211/sean-spicer-james-comey-russia-marc-kasowitz-donald-trump/","keywords":["White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbf490bf9ccd0539/6988cd5186f68e26316e4b18/gettyimages-682379228.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Aric Jenkins","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/aric-jenkins/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbf490bf9ccd0539/6988cd5186f68e26316e4b18/gettyimages-682379228.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer Holds Daily Press Briefing","caption":"White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer Holds Daily Press Briefing","creditText":"Win McNamee—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4800211/sean-spicer-james-comey-russia-marc-kasowitz-donald-trump/","name":"The White House Will No Longer Answer Questions About James Comey's Firing and the Russia Investigation"}}]}] ```