On Friday, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team unveiled indictments against 13 Russian nationals in a wide-ranging, ambitious plot to undermine the integrity of the 2016 presidential elections. As any casual observer of the garbage fire in the White House expected, this led to a furious weekend-long tweetstorm from the conflagration masquerading as a president. His message: stop investigating.
But before we get to that, a reminder: It was revealed last year that Donald Trump Jr. received an email in June, 2016 from a group of Russians seeking to talk about the U.S. presidential campaign. The offer was, in the text of the email:
to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.
This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump – helped along by Aras and Emin.
Trump Jr.’s emailed response is now famous: “if it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.” The top members of the Trump campaign arranged to meet the Russian team in Trump Tower, where the Russians delivered a folder of documents relating the Clinton campaign. When questioned on this meeting, Trump Jr. originally claimed it was to talk about Russian “adoptions”; we now know that wildly misleading statement was in fact authored by Donald Trump himself, on Air Force One. That act is now under investigation by Robert Mueller’s team.
With that reminder in place, let us now have a look at what Trump has been furiously tweeting, in the immediate aftermath of these new indictments.
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General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems. Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018
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Finally, Liddle’ Adam Schiff, the leakin’ monster of no control, is now blaming the Obama Administration for Russian meddling in the 2016 Election. He is finally right about something. Obama was President, knew of the threat, and did nothing. Thank you Adam!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018
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I never said Russia did not meddle in the election, I said “it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer.†The Russian “hoax†was that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia – it never did!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018
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Now that Adam Schiff is starting to blame President Obama for Russian meddling in the election, he is probably doing so as yet another excuse that the Democrats, lead by their fearless leader, Crooked Hillary Clinton, lost the 2016 election. But wasn’t I a great candidate?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018
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If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018
Those were not the only tweets. Donald Trump flew to Mar-a-Lago this weekend ostensibly to meet with the families and victims of our nation’s latest mass shooting, this one in a Florida high school. You can tell the man was deeply moved by the experience.
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Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018
He also spent multiple tweets attacking our nation’s press and, of course, responding to things he saw on his television.
For over a year now, Donald Trump has used his office to demand that the investigation into Russian intelligence and propaganda efforts during the 2016 elections be shut down. He has called for the investigation to be closed seemingly every weekend, and after every new revelation. He is obsessed with shutting the investigation down; his acts, such as the firing of FBI Director Comey and the near-firings of multiple other Justice Department officials, revolve around disrupting or ending the investigation.
But just from the information publicly known, we already know that the top members of Donald Trump’s campaign team sought to collude with Russian government attempts to influence the election. We have that email: we have Donald Trump Jr’s happy acknowledgment of Russian efforts. We know that it resulted in documents being passed to the Trump campaign; we do not know to what extent. We know that the Russian team noted a desired reciprocal effort from Trump and his team; the relaxation of sanctions against Russian oligarchs, sanctions which were met by Putin’s restrictions on Russian adoptions.
We already know the team in Trump Tower knew of a Russian government attempt to assist Trump in winning the election, we know that they welcomed that effort, we knew Donald Trump sought, as president, to cover up the connection via a misleading presidential statement, and we know Trump has fired at least one individual, James Comey, in a specific effort to impede that investigation.
So while the lying, blatantly crooked stubby-fingered vulgarian engages in yet another weekend tweetstorm, we should keep all that in mind. If he wasn’t such a garbage fire of a man, he might keep it in mind himself.