Day 318: Like a Wounded Animal, Trump Goes on the Defensive
After Donald Trump’s damning, public admission to obstruction of justice, he tried desperately to stem the deluge of ridicule and questions and Mueller hashtags.
First, he had one of his many lawyers dive on the grenade and take the blame for the tweet. The missive in question had Trump problematically admitting that he fired former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn for lying to the White House and the FBI.
Three huge issues with “the lawyer did it” excuse.
- Trump claims that Twitter is his primary outlet of getting his message directly to the country. He has touted his ability to bypass the media and he has rarely, if ever, seemed to pass that power on to others.
- One of Trump’s other lawyers drafted a careful statement just hours earlier noting that Flynn was fired for lying to Vice President Mike Pence. It belies belief that two high paid lawyers with one job — keeping Trump from criminal liability — would bungle their story so woefully just hours apart.
- The tweet is still published and live on Trump’s page. While there are questions whether a president can legally delete a tweet, Trump routinely does so anyway, often to fix typographical errors or other embarrassing mistakes. If this was an error by an attorney and factually incorrect, wouldn’t Trump delete it?
But Trump pressed on to, of course, blame Hillary Clinton.
‘Whoa, whoa, forget the fact that Flynn admitted to a federal crime and I just implicated myself in one, what about Hillary?!’ is not a defense likely to hold up in court.
This morning, Trump went full filibuster.
Instead of denying the “and the FBI” tweet, he denied that he ever told Comey to fire Flynn. This is a far worse option considering Comey’s contemporaneous notes from the meeting.
He retweeted his press secretary, Sarah Sanders, touting economic growth and buddy and disgraced former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, touting Trump combating addiction.
Trump then pounced on Mueller firing one of his investigators for anti-Trump tweets, by retweeting SOMEONE doing the WHOLE capital LETTERS thing.
Of course, Mueller firing someone that appeared to have a bias only bolsters the principle that Mueller is running a tight and fair ship.
Trump tweeted about the San Francisco verdict where an illegal immigrant was acquitted of murder, before pivoting back to Hillary in truly incoherent messages.
In spectacular fashion, Trump showed he has no idea how the stock market or court system works (the latter is particularly surprising considering his vast experience in being sued).
What rant would end without alleging a massive conspiracy?
The wounded animal is trying everything.
318 days in, 1144 to go
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