In a series of weekend tweets, Donald Trump thoroughly dispatched with the notion that the Republican "Nunes memo", which the White House approved for release last week, was intended as anything other than a direct attempt to obstruct the investigation into Russian election hacking.
This is a statement so bizarre as to be delusional. The memo of course does not vindicate "Trump", in-quotes or otherwise; it is instead a specific, ham-handed attempt to scuttle the prosecution of Trump campaign team member Carter Page by claiming that Page would never have been a subject of the investigation if it hadn't been for sneaky Democrats accusing him of things. This assertion has been known to be false for many months; Carter Page had attracted the attention of American counterintelligence officials years earlier due to Russian attempts to recruit him as unwitting asset.
Rep. Nunes, a member of Trump's transition team who has refused to recuse himself from the House investigation into, among other things, that transition team, has refused to say whether the White House helped him in crafting this obvious attempt to block or discredit the investigation of Trump campaign member Page; White House involvement may itself be seen as obstruction of justice if Mueller's investigators believe the "memo" was an act by the White House or its associates to intentionally damage the investigation.
But this would likely only be true if it could be proven the White House intended the act to sabotage the federal investigation into Russian election interference; Donald Trump thumping his twitter-thumbs to declare that the memo specifically "vindicates" himself in the "Russian Witch Hunt" is an unambiguous declaration, on Trump's part, that he indeed sees the memo as just that. So there ya go.
Lest there was any confusion over whether Trump was explicitly seeking to block or discredit the Russia investigation, in fact, he made it absolutely clear in repeated posts:
House Speaker Paul Ryan and the retiring Rep. Trey Gowdy have both been explicit in their claims that the Nunes effort supposedly has no bearing on the Mueller investigation and should not be considered an attempt to obstruct it; now that Donald Trump himself has weighed in to assert otherwise they cannot credibly maintain this position. They know that Nunes and Trump see their own efforts as linked inextricably to the Mueller probe; they know that Trump, whose campaign and White House have come under direct scrutiny in the investigation, specifically intended the declassification and release of the memo as a device to discredit that investigation.
While Congressman Ryan enjoys broad legal protection from obstruction of justice charges—protections that Nunes may be wearing thin, in his own acts—he cannot claim in the future that his own efforts to assist the White House in shuttering the Russia investigation were unintentional. Ryan knows the White House's intent; Ryan knows that Nunes, among others, are acting as agents to support that intent.