President Trump has made a habit of staying silent on damaging news stories throughout the week. Instead, he prefers to wait for an innocuous weekend morning or afternoon to provide his commentary.
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That proved to be his preference again this week after news broke Friday that special counsel Robert Mueller handed down indictments against 13 Russian nationals for meddling in the 2016 presidential election to defeat Hillary Clinton, first in the primary, and then in the general election.
Mueller has also charged three of the defendants with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud and five of the defendants with aggravated identity theft.
A Kremlin-backed organization, the “Internet Research Agency” reportedly used false American identities, social media platforms, and other online media between 2014 and 2016, in “supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaging Hillary Clinton,” according to the indictment.
The indictments also specifically mention that any Americans who had contact with the Russians did so unwittingly.
Trump, probably on the advice of his lawyers, avoided his usual biting, antagonistic tweets as the news around the indictments swirled, and issued only a brief mention of them. By Saturday afternoon, however, his guilty conscience got the best of him.
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Focussing on one very narrow aspect of the indictments – that Mueller did not include any charges of collusion by anyone in the Trump campaign in them – the president took to twitter with the fury of a man caught cheating by his wife desperate to clear his name, despite all the evidence mounting against him.
Here they are, in the order they posted:
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“Charges Deal Don A Big Win,” written by Michael Goodwin of the @nypost, succinctly states that “the Russians had no impact on the election results.” There was no Collusion with the Trump Campaign. “She lost the old-fashioned way, by being a terrible candidate. Case closed.”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018
Deputy A.G. Rod Rosenstein stated at the News Conference: “There is no allegation in the indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018
Funny how the Fake News Media doesn’t want to say that the Russian group was formed in 2014, long before my run for President. Maybe they knew I was going to run even though I didn’t know!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018
The Fake News Media never fails. Hard to ignore this fact from the Vice President of Facebook Ads, Rob Goldman! https://t.co/XGC7ynZwYJ
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018
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In the immortal words of Queen Gertrude in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much, me thinks.”
Trump’s desperate analysis that cherry-picks what’s not in the indictment as the sliver of evidence that somehow exonerates him belies the true nature of Mueller’s massive move Friday.
While it’s true that “this indictment” doesn’t accuse any Americans of collusion, including Trump campaign officials – something Deputy AG Rosenstein made a point to articulate during his press conference – this is also no where near the last indictment or guilty plea Mueller’s investigation will produce. Just because collusion wasn’t included in this indictment, doesn’t mean it won’t be included in the next one, or the one after that.
So then why is this so significant? Because before a legal case can be made that anyone in the Trump campaign colluded with Russians, the government must first credibly establish that Russians did in fact commit crimes directly related to the 2016 election.
Mueller has now firmly established just that, and the president knows it.
