On a bleak second day in December, a ray of sunshine bursts the clouds:
Yup, that is what you think it is:I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017
Oh my god, he just admitted to obstruction of justice. If Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI when he asked Comey to let it go, then there is your case. https://t.co/c6Wtd0TfzW— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) December 2, 2017
Never tweet.*— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) December 2, 2017
*Especially if you’re going to tweet an admission to a crime.
THIS IS OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE. @POTUS now admits he KNEW Michael Flynn lied to the FBI. Yet Trump tried to influence or stop the FBI investigation on #Flynn. https://t.co/8JqGBxgou0— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) December 2, 2017
He could be Tweeting himself into an obstruction of justice conviction— Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) December 2, 2017
https://t.co/LDjAGhb6qj
So, is Trump really that stupid?If Trump keeps admitting to obstructing justice, Ty Cobb might be right that the Mueller investigation may wrap up sooner than we think https://t.co/4lKCKyE3Ce— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) December 2, 2017
“UPDATE: The Post is now reporting that the tweet was authored by Trump’s personal lawyer, John Dowd, according to two people familiar with the situation,” said a note added some time after the article was published at 4:30 p.m. Saturday. “The fact that Dowd authored the tweet could limit its salience to the investigation, but the White House still hasn’t publicly corrected anything.”
Well, clearly they think we are.
Trump isn't through, either:Dowd is incompetent enough to have done this, but there is zero reason we should take their word that he did. Pretty convenient spin. https://t.co/Rcj3BUzRp1— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) December 3, 2017
So General Flynn lies to the FBI and his life is destroyed, while Crooked Hillary Clinton, on that now famous FBI holiday “interrogation” with no swearing in and no recording, lies many times...and nothing happens to her? Rigged system, or just a double standard?— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017
And it's not really any kind of a defense, unless the lawyer hacked Trump's Twitter account:This one has to be Trump. No way Dowd is still awake at 9 pm. https://t.co/F5KP8WJeee— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) December 3, 2017
Or maybe the lawyer just wrote the text of the tweet:Trump's folks are so freaked out by @realDonaldTrump tweet that establishes Obstruction of Justice that they are trying to blame lawyer Dowd. If true, they should fire him for malpractice. But it doesn't absolve Trump. If lawyer drafts X & I say X, then I have adopted X as my own https://t.co/lmB6PmM3OE— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) December 3, 2017
No, that doesn't work, either:Trump’s tweet today suggesting he knew that Flynn had lied to the FBI when he fired him was drafted by Trump’s lawyer John Dowd, @kristinegWP reports. https://t.co/hx8C64PIiW— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) December 2, 2017
Just to be clear, how bad is this?Significance of this tweet is @realDonaldTrump could have said his earlier tweet in which he admitted he fired Flynn because he KNEW Flynn lied to FBI, was either not written by him or written incorrectly. Trump didn't do that. Instead, he just doubled down on his earlier tweet. https://t.co/g2nPipbV5K— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) December 3, 2017
And of course, Trump still insists he should be in charge of all decisions judicial and otherwise:Before we slipped into an alternate universe of unabashed corruption, this tweet alone might have ended a Presidential administration.— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) December 2, 2017
Fortunately, Eric Tucker is happy to explain this to us:Many people in our Country are asking what the “Justice” Department is going to do about the fact that totally Crooked Hillary, AFTER receiving a subpoena from the United States Congress, deleted and “acid washed” 33,000 Emails? No justice!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017
In the meantime, don't neglect to ask what Jeff Sessions is up to:Hillary Clinton had a non-custodial interview, which, per FBI and Justice Department policy, would not have been recorded. FBI/DOJ policy on recording interviews applies to people in custody https://t.co/vfeHrFy1Ih— Eric Tucker (@etuckerAP) December 3, 2017
NEW: Sessions weighs in on Pete Strozek text message issue, says he's directing FBI Director Chris Wray to review all available information on it "and promptly make any necessary charges to his management and investigative teams consistent with the highest professional standards"— Eric Tucker (@etuckerAP) December 3, 2017
Which leads to this observation:More from Sessions: "The allegations that the Inspector General has confirmed are part of his ongoing investigation, if proven to be true, would raise serious questions of public trust."— Eric Tucker (@etuckerAP) December 3, 2017
So, yeah, here we are, in an alternative universe of unabashed corruption, where the President is an ignorant clown and the AG of the United States is a corrupt politician. Or December 2, 2017; whichever you prefer.Ten months in, Sessions is still behaving like a GOP Senator from Alabama, & not the AG of the US. That’s ultimately a bigger problem for him than Trump’s nonsense.— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) December 3, 2017
UPDATE: How much are they paying this guy?
John Dowd, an attorney for President Donald Trump, is claiming that he wrote the president’s tweet on Saturday in which he said he fired ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to Vice President Mike Pence and to the FBI. “He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!” Trump wrote in part of Flynn, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Dowd told ABC News that he wrote the tweet and that it was “sloppy.”
Still doesn't make any difference; as Ted Lieu pointed out (above), Trump has tacitly accepted these words as his own, and having done so, they are now. Same thing if your lawyer makes a stupid plea on your behalf in court, and you tell the court "Yeah, I agree with that."
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