By Mark Wilson/Getty Images. Trump photographed attending a meeting in the Pentagon on January 18th.
Sequestered at Mar-a-Lago and without his usual golf outing to sustain him, Donald Trump spent much of the past 24 hours venting his frustrations with special counsel Robert Mueller’s
Russia investigation, following indictments against 13 Russians accused
of meddling in the 2016 election. In more than a dozen messages
beginning Saturday afternoon and continuing into the night, Trump railed
against the F.B.I., Democrats, General H.R. McMaster, the media, Barack Obama, and, naturally, Hillary Clinton.
“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,”
Trump tweeted Sunday morning, while claiming that he had never denied Russia’s involvement. “They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!”
Of course, Trump has
repeatedly denied that Russia assisted his election, as Mueller’s
indictment alleges, and continued to do so over the weekend. “There is
no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the
outcome of the 2016 election,” Trump said in one tweet. In another, he
accused the “Fake News Media” of ignoring the fact that the Russian
disinformation campaign had begun before he announced his candidacy. A
few minutes later, he tweeted again, pointing to comments
from a Facebook advertising executive who suggested the main purpose of
the Russian campaign was to divide Americans, not to sway the election.
At
no point did Trump say anything critical about the Russian agents who
had launched the attack on America’s electoral and media institutions,
or about Russia itself, which continues to conduct cyber war against the
United States. Instead, later Saturday night, the president excoriated
the F.B.I., saying the bureau failed to stop a recent mass shooting at a
local high school because it was too focused on Russia. “Very sad that
the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school
shooter,” he wrote. “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!”
Shortly
before midnight, he tweeted again, chiding his National Security
Adviser for disparaging Russia rather than Clinton, and describing a
series of incidents and issues he believes represent the true threat
against America. “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!”
Hours later, after waking up Sunday morning, he thought of one more:
He then turned his wrath toward Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff,
the “leakin’ monster of no control,“ who often appears on CNN to
discuss the White House’s inner workings. “He is finally right about
something. Obama was President, knew of the threat [from Russia], and
did nothing. Thank you Adam!”
The remarkable
series of tweets evokes a man backed into a corner. Although the
president and his allies have maintained that nobody on the Trump
campaign colluded with Russia, many insiders within his orbit have
expressed worries that Mueller’s probe will lead to more indictments.
Already, the special counsel has leveled charges against Trump’s former
campaign manager, Paul Manafort; Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates; former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn; and foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.
While Manafort and Gates have pleaded not guilty, Flynn and
Papadopoulos have made arrangements to cooperate with prosecutors, and
Gates is believed to be negotiating for a deal. Mueller has interviewed
dozens of Trump’s aides and allies, including Hope Hicks, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon,
and others with direct knowledge of the campaign, and is believed to be
particularly interested in a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between the
president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and a
Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer peddling damaging information about
Clinton. Legal experts have suggested Mueller appears to be building a
case of obstruction of justice, whether or not he also finds evidence of
underlying crimes.
Mueller’s
latest indictment says that some of accused Russians communicated with
“unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign”—language that
is currently giving comfort to some in Trump’s inner circle. But the
words Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein chose in describing the indictment should still worry the president: “There is no allegation in this indictment
that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity.”
That leaves the door open to future indictments—potentially implicating
Trump’s associates or even Trump himself.
Trump,
who sees the Russia investigation as an attempt to delegitimize his
presidency, seems determined to undermine Mueller, the F.B.I., and other
elements of the Justice Department in anticipation of that possibility.
It has also left him wounded, as he obsesses over his treatment on
cable news, from within his palatial Palm Beach estate. “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 [sic] by their fearless leader, Crooked Hillary Clinton,
lost the 2016 election,” he fumed Sunday morning. “But wasn’t I a great
candidate?”
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