Day 158: Trump Accuses Obama of Colluding With Russians Because…?
Yes, seriously.
Donald Trump woke up on the normal side of the bed this morning and banged out a tweet tantrum. (Based on the sentence structure and correct grammar throughout, it’s overwhelmingly likely someone helped him craft these bad boys.)
Book-ended by tweets about health care, Trump first accused Barack Obama of sitting on the whole Russians hacking the election thing for political gain.
Trump claims Obama “colluded or obstructed” with the Russians. That’s just not supported by any facts.
While few question that Obama should have engaged in far more aggressive tactics in combating Russian interference, he did order a full investigation and tried to employ strategic decisions that would not further escalate an already murky situation. Additionally, Republicans were briefed and vowed to make it a partisan attack if Obama did more and spoke out publicly about Russian meddling, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) serving as the tip of the spear.
And they made a case for a united, bipartisan front in response to what one official described as “the threat posed by unprecedented meddling by a foreign power in our election process.”
The Democratic leaders in the room unanimously agreed on the need to take the threat seriously. Republicans, however, were divided, with at least two GOP lawmakers reluctant to accede to the White House requests.
According to several officials, McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.
While Obama undoubtedly made significant missteps, he didn’t obstruct anything.
Collusion is, somehow, an even dumber accusation. Trump is accusing Obama of engaging in a conspiracy to undermine the 2016 election. Meanwhile, Trump, not Obama, took to national television and begged hackers to leak personal documents. Trump, not Obama, has numerous shady and financial connections to Russia. Trump, not Obama, surrounded himself with individuals closely tied to the Russian government. Trump, not Obama, saw his cronies continue to lie and have selective memories about meeting with Russian officials before and after the election. Trump, not Obama, tried to set up back-channel communications with Russians in their own embassy. Trump sought to ease sanctions on key economic institutions and individuals in Russia imposed by Obama as a result of their election interference.
After the insults hurled toward Obama, Trump then demanded an apology since no tapes have emerged of his own collusion.
Trump is continually baffled that he hasn’t been exonerated during an investigation that is still in its infancy. Between looking backwards at Russian connections between Trump and his team for years (and even decades), combing through hundreds of thousands of documents, as well as interviewing all people with knowledge or potentially relevant information central to the investigation, this inquiry has barely started. So far, this investigation is quite the opposite of being scrutinized with a magnifying glass. Special counsel Robert Mueller is almost certainly beginning his appraisal at the 35,000 foot level, attempting to get a broad view of what happened and why. Four months is nothing.
Trump’s claim that Mueller’s lack of tapes is proof-positive of no collusion is inane.
First, tapes are not the only evidence of collusion. Next, Trump can’t possibly know who everyone on his team talked to and when. Since he can’t know that, he can’t know if those conversations were picked up and recorded in the same incidental collection manner that Michael Flynn’s conversations were picked up by American spy agencies. Finally, Trump’s statement doesn’t deny the potential existence of recorded conversations, but rather asserts that Mueller’s team doesn’t have them, something he should have no way of knowing anyway.
This morning’s tweets are new election-meddling explanations for Trump, rolled out like unique products at a department store. They join a list that includes China, a New Jerseyan and a 400-pound man sitting on his bed.
Just a few days ago, he described the whole Russian interference thing as a hoax.
158 days in, 1304 to go
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