Saturday, July 14, 2018

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to put a good spin on the most recent round of Mueller indictments.

Yesterday, the Justice Department announced indictments of 12 Russian military officers for crimes committed during that country's pro-Trump interference in the 2016 election. In his first remarks on the subject since that announcement, Trump tried to shift the blame to then-President Obama. While careful to call the events reference in the detailed indictment "stories," Trump asked in a tweet, "Why didn’t they do something about it, especially when it was reported that President Obama was informed by the FBI in September, before the Election?"

This is not a totally unreasonable question--in fact, in the aftermath of the Russian-aided Trump victory, Obama administration officials publicly second-guessed their handling of the situation.  

But Trump's attempt to blame President Obama take on a different look in light of the most damning detail in the indictment: that the Putin regime's efforts to hack the DNC began almost instantaneously after he went on live television and asked Russia, specifically and by name, to "find" Hillary Clinton's e-mails.

Trump has a one-on-one meeting Vladimir Putin this Monday. He has said he'll "ask" Putin again about Russia's actions, but made a joke of how unlikely Putin was to confess. 

Why should I care about this?

  • "My co-conspirator should have been caught sooner" is not really a defense, even if it's true.