Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer believes that President Trump is now under investigation by the Justice Department amid probes into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Recounting Thursday's high-profile Senate testimony from former FBI Director James Comey, Krauthammer said that Trump was likely frustrated that Comey would not publicly confirm that Trump wasn't under investigation despite his private assurances.
Krauthammer added that actions that Trump made in that frustration may have backfired.
"Comey handing over his notes to former Director Mueller, who is running the [special] investigation, means that Trump is now under investigation," Krauthammer said Friday during the Faith and Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority conference in Washington.
"That's the irony—all he was trying to do was to get the story out that he wasn't, but in pursuit of that, he created a string of events where it's likely, we don't know, he is under investigation."
Comey confirmed in his opening statement on Thursday that he told Trump he was not under investigation. But he added in the statement that he didn't want to announce that publicly because it would have forced him to publicly correct the record if the bureau ultimately did decide to investigate Trump.
Later in the testimony, Comey admitted that he arranged for the contents of a memo he wrote about his interactions with the president to be shared with the New York Times, hoping that it would spark the appointment of a special counsel. Mueller was later appointed to lead that investigation.
While Krauthammer said that he didn't think the testimony put Trump in "any legal jeopardy," that "he's got trouble" in an investigation that is out of his control.
And he criticized Trump's communications staff, arguing that Trump "wasn't well represented" on Thursday when spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to a reporter's question by stating that "the president is not a liar."