In a strategy shift, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Wednesday for the first time referred a reporter’s question about the president’s actions in regard to the FBI’s Russia probe to an outside counsel.

On Tuesday, Spicer jousted with several reporters during his daily briefing when they posed questions about Russia or a handful of ongoing congressional and federal probes. But a day later, during a briefing that lasted just under 12 minutes, Spicer signaled that the White House has decided to let President Donald Trump’s private lawyers field those inquiries.

The question Spicer declined to take on Tuesday was direct: Did Trump obstruct justice in his conversations with James B. Comey, the FBI director he fired on May 9? Comey, as the bureau’s chief, was overseeing its investigation of Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election, including questionable ties between Trump’s campaign and Russian officials.

The new approach represents a different tack than one Trump himself took just hours earlier. In two morning tweets, he blasted congressional Democrats over an alleged report that they no longer wanted testimony from a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.

Trump appeared to refer to a Washington Examiner article when he tweeted that “the Democrats, who have excoriated Carter Page about Russia, don’t want him to testify.”

Trump wrote that his former adviser “wants to clear his name by showing ‘the false or misleading testimony by James Comey, John Brennan…’” (Brennan was the Obama administration’s last CIA director.)

The president ended his second tweet on the matter by again referring to several congressional investigations and the FBI’s probe into Russia as a collective “Witch Hunt!”

So now it is reported that the Democrats, who have excoriated Carter Page about Russia, don’t want him to testify. He blows away their….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017

…case against him & now wants to clear his name by showing “the false or misleading testimony by James Comey, John Brennan…” Witch Hunt!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017

Meantime, in one of the still-young administration’s stranger moments, Spicer was asked Wednesday to explain what the president meant in a since-deleted late-night tweet: “Despite the negative media covfefe”

Trump, six hours later, seemed to have a little fun with what appeared to be a simple typo. He urged his followers to figure out the “true meaning” of “covfefe.”

Who can figure out the true meaning of “covfefe” ??? Enjoy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017

“The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant,” Spicer said. The assembled reporters wanted more, crying out in unison, but the more-subdued-than-normal press secretary left it there.