Tag: President Treason

Trump says nah he didn’t.

Who could fail to believe that?

Donald Trump has denied a report alleging he made a promise to a foreign leader, which sparked a whistleblower’s formal complaint.

The complaint is reported to relate to a July phone call with Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

The Washington Post said an intelligence official found the comment “so troubling” they went to the department’s inspector general.

One guess is that it has to do with trying to steal the next presidential election with the help of the military.

Democrats are trying to get the complaint turned over to Congress, with the details still unknown.

However, some reports allege that Mr Trump asked Mr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter – who previously served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company – in return for continued US military support.

Totally normal. “Hey, Volodymyr, how’s about you help me sabotage Joe Biden, and in return I’ll send you weapons.”

Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson said the complaint consists of a “serious or flagrant problem, abuse or violation of the law” that involves classified information, a letter to lawmakers revealed.

Which Trump and his enforcers are keeping secret. That’s not supposed to be how this works.

Earlier this month, before the whistleblower’s complaint came to light, House Democrats launched an investigation into Mr Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s interactions with Ukraine.

Three Democratic panel heads – Eliot Engel (foreign affairs), Adam Schiff (intelligence) and Elijah Cummings (oversight) – said Mr Trump and Mr Giuliani had attempted “to manipulate the Ukrainian justice system to benefit the president’s re-election campaign and target a possible political opponent”.

They allege that Mr Trump and Mr Giuliani tried to pressure the Ukrainian government into investigating Joe and Hunter Biden.

Well at least they didn’t try to pressure the Ukrainian government into kidnapping Stormy Daniels.

Astonishing.

President Donald Trump is considering revoking security clearances from ex-officials, including former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday.

Sanders said Trump believed that the former officials “politicized” their positions by accusing Trump of inappropriate contact with Russia, and she said in that some cases they “monetized their clearances,” without clarifying what she meant.

“The fact that people with security clearances are making baseless charges provides inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence,” Sanders said. She also said Trump was eyeing clearances held by former NSA Director Michael Hayden, former national security adviser Susan Rice and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose security clearance was deactivated after he was fired.

What a spiteful reckless unguided missile he is.

He’s so reckless and ego-centered that he doesn’t care that they’re in a position to know and understand why it’s not clever to try to be besties with Putin, he cares only that they failed to say he’s right about everything. This should get him swiftly removed from office, but it won’t.

Brennan, Comey and Clapper have been vocal critics of Trump, often making headlines over their displeasure with the president’s performance.

Last week, Brennan lambasted Trump’s meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, calling it “nothing short of treasonous.”

“Making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia or being influenced by Russia against the president is extremely inappropriate,” Sanders said during Monday’s press briefing. “And the fact that people with security clearances are making these baseless charges provides inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence.”

No, making treasonous overtures to Putin without witnesses present is “extremely inappropriate.” Punishing the people who say so is also not appropriate, or productive or legitimate or responsible or adult or anything else a president ought to be.

Several minutes after Huckabee announced that the White House was seeking to revoke his clearance, Clapper on Monday called it “a petty way of retribution: for speaking out against Trump and said that “it’s an abuse of the system.”

“The security clearance has nothing to do with how I or any of us feel about the president,” Clapper said in an interview with CNN, adding that he does not get security briefings and does not have access to classified information.

But taking it away is its own reward, aka spite.

When asked whether the president was punishing those ex-officials for speaking out, Sanders said: “The president doesn’t like that people are politicizing agencies and departments that are specifically meant to not be political and not meant to be monetized off of security clearances.”

“Accusing the president of the United States of treasonous activity when you have the highest level of security clearance, when you’re the person that holds the nation’s deepest, most sacred secrets at your hands, and you go out and make false accusations against the president of the United States, he thinks that is something to be very concerned with,” Sanders added.

They’re not false. A week ago Trump stood there next to Putin and said he didn’t believe Dan Coats, he believed Putin. The accusations that Trump behaved deplorably and quite possibly treasonously in Helsinki are not false, they are visibly true.

Updating to add Rand Paul’s tweets:

Is John Brennan monetizing his security clearance? Is John Brennan making millions of dollars divulging secrets to the mainstream media with his attacks on @realDonaldTrump ?

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 23, 2018

Today I will meet with the President and I will ask him to revoke John Brennan’s security clearance!

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 23, 2018

Just got out of WH meeting with @realDonaldTrump. I restated to him what I have said in public: John Brennan and others partisans should have their security clearances revoked.

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 23, 2018

Public officials should not use their security clearances to leverage speaking fees or network talking head fees

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 23, 2018

More lies.

Is Russia still targeting the US? Trump says, "No." pic.twitter.com/L5ZY9DE4r1

— Meg Wagner (@megwagner) July 18, 2018

“There’s been no president ever as tough as I have been on Russhah.”

Oh come on.

Reuters:

U.S. President Donald Trump tried on Tuesday to calm a storm over his failure to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, saying he misspoke in a joint news conference in Helsinki.

…

“I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t,’” Trump told reporters at the White House, more than 24 hours after his appearance with Putin. “The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.’”

Well of course it should have been, but it wasn’t.

Although he faced pressure from critics, allied countries and even his own staff to take a tough line, Trump said not a single disparaging word in public about Moscow on any of the issues that have brought relations between the two nuclear powers to the lowest ebb since the Cold War.

Republicans and Democrats accused him of siding with an adversary rather than his own country.

Mainly reading from a prepared statement, Trump said on Tuesday he had complete faith in U.S. intelligence agencies and accepted their conclusions. But he appeared to veer from his script to also hedge on who was responsible for the election interference.

“It could be other people also – there’s a lot of people out there,” he said.

Like that guy in a basement. Remember him? He could have done it.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s comments on Tuesday were another sign of weakness, particularly his statement that it “could be other people” responsible for the election meddling.

“He made a horrible statement, tried to back off, but couldn’t even bring himself to back off,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “It shows the weakness of President Trump that he is afraid to confront Mr. Putin directly.”

The weakest thing about him is his head.

Guest post by Robert Ahrens.

I wish I had some pithy, cool, smartass remarks to make about this week’s news.

From the indictment of Russia’s intelligence operatives and the astonishing details of their actions coupled with those of the Trump campaign, including Trump himself, to the events of today, where the President of the United States stood up before the world, on live TV and told us he trusts the leader of our most powerful enemy more than he does our own Intelligence services, I am numb.

I should be angry.

I should be virtually speechless with anger, with enraged disgust, and with outraged fury at both the actions and words of the traitor who inhabits the White House AND the Republican Party who have and continue to refuse to hold this disgusting little man to account.

But, somehow, I’m just numb.

Perhaps its because I don’t see Congress, under the GOP, doing anything. Perhaps its because the checks and balances built into this system have failed and continue to fail due to the corruption and traitorous greed being shown by the leadership of the GOP, who have been enabled by the actions of the NRA, as enticed by the Russian money offered by that Russian redhead the DOJ indicted as a foreign agent today.

Perhaps its because of the 40 some-odd percent of Americans who suck at the tit of the Republican Party and are so stupid they cannot see treason when it hits them upside the head with a baseball bat.

Whichever reason, today, I’m just numb. I cannot feel anything but sadness and a kind of listless pain I cannot fully describe.

This country has endured war, both civil and foreign, disease, famine, natural disaster, economic disaster, political disaster, and all sorts of other calamities for two hundred and forty-two years.

When I started my Federal career, this country was two hundred years old. I spent 42 years and four months serving our government and you, the American taxpayer, in both military and civilian capacities. Today, I cry.

There are people in prison today because they betrayed our country in various ways. In the past, our country has EXECUTED people for that crime. Today, I cry.

Today, a wealthy man sits in the White House, guarded by our loyal and dedicated Secret Service agents tasked with the protection of the person who occupies the office of President of the United States. To see that, I cry more.

He was elected through the actions of a foreign power with whom he and those under him colluded and plotted with to fraudulently ensure his success in gaining that office. Today, I cry.

He has turned this country upside down through refusing to abide by both law and tradition in making this government work, refused to properly enforce the law, accepted emoluments from foreign governments as of the moment he took the oath of office, and today, has taken the side of a foreign dictator over the interests of the United States, in violation of both the Constitution and his Oath of Office.

As of this evening, Pacific time, the GOP has done nothing.

Oh, yeah, a few Republicans have displayed some form of complaint to the press.

A few.

If, by this time tomorrow, Congress has not seen the filing of at least one bill of Articles of Impeachment and actually advanced that legislation in serious intent, you can be certain that the GOP is most assuredly in cahoots with Trump and the Russians.

…and this country is most assuredly screwed.

I, for one, have no idea where this goes from here, but tonight, I’m just numb.

If I didn’t have some form of cirrhosis from my overweight days, I’d go get drunk.

Somebody cheer me up.

The choreography of the whole thing was interesting. Trump went bopping off to Europe to insult more allies and fantasize aloud about his future friendship with Putin…when all the time he knew about the indictments that were in the pipeline.

President Trump had been aware all along about the charges against Russian actors, and had been briefed on them by the Justice Department even before he left for Europe. “The President is fully aware of the department’s actions today,” Rosenstein told reporters as he announced the indictments, which lay out in methodical detail the ways in which agents of the Russian government systematically worked to infiltrate the Democrats’ 2016 campaign with the apparent goal of helping Trump win the American Presidency.

Trump knew the indictment was coming when he bragged about what an easy meeting he would have with Putin. He knew it was coming when he once again attacked the investigation by his own government as “rigged.” And he knew it was coming when he rambled on about an agenda for the Helsinki summit that would cover just about everything but the Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Talk about brazen.

Talk about treasonous.

On Friday, the only White House comment after the indictments was not a condemnation of the Russian campaign, as outlined in damning detail in the indictment, to subvert American democracy. No, it was simply a partisan statement of support for the President, noting that all those charged in the case were Russians. “This is consistent with what we have been saying all along,” the statement said.

It’s as if Trump were a literal god-king, and nothing in the world mattered except what Trump wanted.

Democrats in Congress, and at least one Republican—the ever more isolated Senator John McCain—immediately demanded that Trump cancel the Helsinki summit, at least, as McCain put it, “if President Trump is not prepared to hold President Putin accountable.” But, of course, Trump is prepared neither to take Putin to task nor to cancel the summit he has spent months pushing his staff to arrange for him.

And apparently nobody can do anything about it so we just have to sit here and watch him lay waste to everything.

Ohhhhhh god.

The Post, minutes ago – 8 p.m. their time, so it’s another one of these end-of-the-day booms that cause Maddow to tear up the show she and her people just spent the day writing and producing.

This one though…

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has gathered evidence that a secret meeting in the Seychelles just before the inauguration of Donald Trump was an effort to establish a back channel between the incoming administration and the Kremlin — apparently contradicting statements made to lawmakers by one of its participants, according to people familiar with the matter.

Urk.

So it’s all true. Tillerson, and his demolition of the State Department and our ability to conduct a reasonable foreign policy – all Putin’s doing. Putin who saw to it that that double agent who retired to Salisbury got poisoned along with his daughter and the cop who got to them first. World of Oligarchs, here we are.

A witness cooperating with Mueller has told investigators the meeting was set up in advance so that a representative of the Trump transition could meet with an emissary from Moscow to discuss future relations between the countries, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

While Obama was still president, and not in plain view at Trump Tower or similar, but in deep secrecy in the Seychelles.

George Nader, a Lebanese American business who helped organize and attended the Seychelles meeting, has testified on the matter before a grand jury gathering evidence about discussions between the Trump transition team and emissaries of the Kremlin, as part of Mueller’s investigation into Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election.

They nabbed him at Dulles in mid-January and he’s been co-operating ever since.

While Mueller is probing the circumstances of the Seychelles meeting, he is also more broadly examining apparent efforts by the Trump transition team to create a back channel for secret talks between the new administration and the Kremlin. Mueller was appointed special counsel to investigate possible Russian interference in the 2016 election, whether any Americans assisted in such efforts, and any other matters that arise in the course of his probe.

Investigators now suspect that the Seychelles meeting may have been one of the first efforts to establish such a line of communications between the two governments, these people said. Nader’s account is considered key evidence — but not the only evidence — about what transpired in the Seychelles, according to people familiar with the matter.

Nader has long served as an adviser to the UAE leadership, and in that role he met more than once with Trump officials, including Stephen K. Bannon and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to people familiar with the matter. After the Seychelles meeting, Nader visited the White House several times, and met at least once there with Bannon and Kushner, these people said.

This is just awful. I still can’t get my head around it. We’ve been pitched into the filth and we can’t get out.

The Times has a transcript via the White House of Trump’s treasonous lies about Putin.

As you know, we saw each other last night just for a picture, and that was the first time. And then today we had a round table with numerous countries. You have a list of the countries, obviously. Right? You have a list.

And we spoke intermittently during that round table. We seem to have a very good feeling for each other and a good relationship considering we don’t know each other well. I think it’s a very good relationship.

This is the guy who said Obama liked him after they had that get-together after the election – the guy who told a disgusting racist lie about Obama on widely-seen tv shows for years and thought Obama “liked” him. That’s how good his radar is; that’s how good he is at detecting a performance; that’s how good he is at seeing past the polite public mask to the reality beneath.

REPORTER: Did Russia’s attempts to meddle in U.S. elections come up in the conversation?

TRUMP: He said he didn’t meddle. He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times. But I just asked him again, and he said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they’re saying he did. And he said —

REPORTER: Do you believe him?

TRUMP: Well, look, I can’t stand there and argue with him. I’d rather have him get out of Syria, to be honest with you. I’d rather have him — you know, work with him on the Ukraine than standing and arguing about whether or not — because that whole thing was set up by the Democrats.

The art of the deal, people. The art of the deal.

I mean, they ought to look at Podesta. They ought to look at all of the things that they’ve done with the phony dossier. Those are the big events. Those are the big events.

But Putin said he did not do what they said he did. And, you know, there are those that say, if he did do it, he wouldn’t have gotten caught, all right? Which is a very interesting statement. But we have a — you know, we have a good feeling toward getting things done.

If we had a relationship with Russia, that would be a good thing. In fact, it would be a great thing, not a bad thing. Because he could really help us in North Korea. We have a big problem with North Korea. And China is helping us. And because of the lack of a relationship that we have with Russia because of this artificial thing that’s happening with this Democratic-inspired thing, we could really be helped a lot, tremendously, with Russia having to do with North Korea.

And, you know, you’re talking about millions and millions of lives. This isn’t baby stuff. This is the real deal. And if Russia helped us, in addition to China, that problem would go away a lot faster.

REPORTER: How did you bring up the issue of election meddling? Did you ask him a question?

TRUMP: He just — every time he sees me, he says, “I didn’t do that.” And I believe — I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it. But he says, “I didn’t do that.” I think he’s very insulted by it, if you want to know the truth.

Don’t forget, all he said is he never did that, he didn’t do that. I think he’s very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country. Because again, if we had a relationship with Russia, North Korea — which is our single biggest problem right now — North Korea, it would be helped a lot. I think I’m doing very well with respect to China. They’ve cut off financing; they’ve cut off bank lines; they’ve cut off lots of oil and lots of other things, lots of trade. And it’s having a big impact. But Russia, on the other hand, may be making up the difference. And if they are, that’s not a good thing.

So having a relationship with Russia would be a great thing — not a good thing — it would be a great thing, especially as it relates to North Korea.

And I’ll say this, Hillary had her stupid reset button that she spelled the word wrong, but she doesn’t have what it takes to have that kind of a relationship where you could call or you could do something and they would pull back from North Korea, or they’d pull back from Syria, or maybe pull back from Ukraine. I mean, if we could solve the Ukraine problem —

But this is really an artificial barrier that’s put in front of us for solving problems with Russia, and he says that very strongly. He really seems to be insulted by it, and he says he didn’t do it. So —

REPORTER: (Inaudible) do you believe him —

TRUMP: Excuse me?

REPORTER: Even if he (inaudible) one-on-one, do you believe him?

TRUMP: I think that he is very, very strong in the fact that he didn’t do it. And then you look, and you look at what’s going on with Podesta, and you look at what’s going on with the server from the D.N.C. and why didn’t the F.B.I. take it, why did they leave it, why did a third party look at the server and not the FBI — if you look at all of this stuff, and you say, what’s going on here?

And then you hear it’s 17 agencies. Well, it’s three. And one is Brennan and one is whatever. I mean, give me a break. They’re political hacks.

So you look at it — I mean, you have Brennan, you have Clapper, and you have Comey. Comey is proven now to be a liar and he’s proven to be a leaker.

So you look at that, and you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with that. Now, you’re not going to get into an argument. You’re going to start talking about Syria and the Ukraine.

That’s the president of the United States.

Trump updated his diary on Twitter for us. Apparently he was brilliant at the G20 meeting, and he awed everyone, and the whole world fell to its knees in admiration of American and its Shining Golden Prince.

The G 20 Summit was a great success for the U.S. – Explained that the U.S. must fix the many bad trade deals it has made. Will get done!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2017

Mansplaining at its finest.

He’s so clueless and so narcissistic and so passionately in love with himself that he thinks he can Explain things to the rest of the world, and the rest of the world will listen and nod and understand. He fails to consider that the rest of the world doesn’t see him the way he sees himself. He thinks it sees him the way he sees himself, except with envy instead of glorious satisfaction.

He thinks the rest of the world agrees with him that he understands trade and economics and all other complicated subjects.

It doesn’t.

He also thinks, even  more fatuously, that the world sees US self-interest as its own, while not seeing its own self-interest as its own. He must think that, because otherwise he wouldn’t talk nonsense about explaining to the world what the US wants as if that were supposed to be a conversation stopper for countries that aren’t the US. It’s like saying “I’m really hungry!” as you grab a stranger’s sandwich, and expecting that to be sufficient justification.

I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I've already given my opinion…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2017

That one will run and run. Oh well then – if he vehemently denied it, there’s no more to be said. Obviously he wouldn’t lie about it. Obviously he especially wouldn’t lie about it vehemently. Vehemence is proof; we all know that. Thank god Trump asked him about it, because otherwise we wouldn’t realize that he denies it. Especially thank god Trump strongly pressed him about it, because Trump is such a strong strong strong man, so if he strongly presses you, there’s no resisting him. That wimp Obama would have merely asked, and Putin probably could have resisted that, but our strong strong strong golden-haired Prince sweeps all before him with his strongly pressing. His strength is strongly strong as his hair is goldenly golden.

If only Trump had been invited to ask Bernie Madoff if he was running a Ponzi scheme.

…We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2017

Note the way he takes for granted exactly what Putin wants him and everyone to take for granted – that Putin and Trump together run the world.

Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2017

This one too will run and run – Trump gloating at his success in persuading the fox to help him guard the chickens. Trump gloating at his success in enlisting Putin in a project that will make hacking our elections and all other government work so much easier. It’s as if Chamberlain had returned from Munich not merely rejoicing at Peace in Our Time but also congratulating himself for persuading Hitler to examine British military intelligence from then on.

…and safe. Questions were asked about why the CIA & FBI had to ask the DNC 13 times for their SERVER, and were rejected, still don't….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2017

Again he trashes US institutions to his BFF Putin. It’s kind of not a million miles from treason. It’s certainly childish and disgusting.

…have it. Fake News said 17 intel agencies when actually 4 (had to apologize). Why did Obama do NOTHING when he had info before election?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2017

More of the same. Gee, Vlad, doncha just hate the New York Times and US intelligence agencies? Doncha?

Sanctions were not discussed at my meeting with President Putin. Nothing will be done until the Ukrainian & Syrian problems are solved!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2017

Translation: I went totally belly-up for Putin because he flattered me and I really am that vain and stupid.

The conclusion was that projectile-vomit-inducing video.

So Trump took Comey aside and asked him to drop the investigation into Flynn.

President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

“I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.

You see he was being nice about it. He asked him nicely, in a nice way. He must be such a nice man.

The existence of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.

Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. The memo was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.

This is awful. This is just fucking awful – being dragged into the sewer like this with no one stopping him. We don’t have a good system; if we did this wouldn’t be happening.

Comey shared his memo with a number of people in the FBI.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

“Let this go” – let being in the pay of a hostile foreign rival, and lying to government officials about it, go. As if it were a parking ticket. Trump’s been a criminal his whole adult life; that’s how criminals think. We’re good guys; it’s cool that we can get away with this.

The White House issued an insultingly dishonest statement:

While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn,” the statement said. “The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations.”

The hell he does.

Mr. Comey created similar memos — including some that are classified — about every phone call and meeting he had with the president, the two people said. It is unclear whether Mr. Comey told the Justice Department about the conversation or his memos.

Well that should be interesting. He’s refused to testify in secret, but he wants to testify in public.

Mr. Comey had been in the Oval Office that day with other senior national security officials for a terrorism threat briefing. When the meeting ended, Mr. Trump told those present — including Mr. Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions — to leave the room except for Mr. Comey.

Alone in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump began the discussion by condemning leaks to the news media, saying that Mr. Comey should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information, according to one of Mr. Comey’s associates.

Remember during the debate when he told Hillary Clinton she’d be in prison if he won?

Glenn Thrush and Peter Baker on Trump’s gymnastics:

In a series of early-morning posts on Twitter, Mr. Trump did not dispute reports that he might have provided enough details to reveal the source of the information and the manner in which it had been collected. The information about the Islamic State plot came from a Middle Eastern ally and was considered so sensitive that American officials had not shared it widely within their own government or among allies.

I think it’s probably obvious what Middle Eastern ally that is. What’s not obvious is whether or not Trump ever grasped that it doesn’t want the US blabbing what it shares, and why it doesn’t (angry mullahs would be one big reason), and what the consequences will be if it decides we can’t be trusted. It’s not obvious that Trump can follow a chain of reasoning with more than one moving part.

Mr. Trump’s Twitter posts on Tuesday morning appeared to undercut the carefully worded statements made by his advisers Monday night to try to dispute the original news reports without taking issue with specific facts in them. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said in a statement that the president “did not discuss sources, methods or military operations” with the Russians. Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, likewise told reporters that Mr. Trump had not disclosed intelligence methods or sources.

But The Post and the other news organizations did not report that he had done so. Instead, they focused on the breach of espionage etiquette, and on the possibility that American allies might be discouraged from sharing intelligence with the United States.

Different thing, see? But that could be too meta for Trump.

General McMaster told reporters on Monday that The Post’s account “as reported” was “false,” but on Twitter on Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump made no such assertion and instead sought to justify what he had done.

As he did with the Comey firing. His people say he didn’t steal the cake, the next day he says he had an absolute right to the cake.

PAUSE TO READ BREAKING NEWS HEADLINE

Oh. I was wrong about which ally it was. I thought it was Saudi Arabia. The Times reports it was Israel.

I gotta go read more.