Son of Trump pulls no punches in defence of the president

Trump Jr delivers running commentary on Comey testimony to Senate with a stream of almost 70 tweets

THE son of Donald Trump has launched a furious real-time defence of his father on Twitter – leaping to the president’s rescue, while Mr Trump himself appeared to listen to White House advice and did not to tweet.

Donald Jr, tweeted and retweeted more than 65 messages during the three hours of testimony to the Senate intelligence committee from James Comey, the former FBI director.

When Mr Comey stated Mr Trump never asked him to stop the Russia investigation – only to “let this go”, with regards to his investigation of Michael Flynn, the former White House National Security Advisor – Mr Trump Jr tweeted: “Kind of a big deal… No?”

Mr Trump Jr, 39, gave his own interpretation of events, describing the cloud of suspicion over Mr Flynn as “BS”. The businessman also referred to the whole proceedings as “a joke”, reacting with incredulity when Mr Comey told how he wanted his memos to be made public, so concerned was he by their content.

“Did I miss something or did Comey just say he asked a friend to leak information to the press? Is this a joke?” he wrote and mocked the former FBI director for his admission that he failed to stand up to Mr Trump, when he asked him to end the investigation. Mr Comey said perhaps someone stronger than him would have done so.

Retweeting Trump supporters such as Bill O’reilly, who was recently forced out of Fox News over sexual harassment allegations, and a man by the Twitter handle of “CNN is ISIS and Hitler”, Mr Trump Jr poured on the scorn.

“So if he was a ‘stronger guy’ he might actually have followed procedure and the law? You were the director of the FBI, who are you kidding?” he asked.

Mr Trump Jr seized on Mr Comey’s assertion that he interpreted as a direction the president’s statement that he “hoped” the FBI would drop its probe into Mr Flynn. He added: “You would think a guy like Comey” would know the difference between “hoping and telling.”

He also cast doubt on all of Mr Comey’s testimony and said he should “have actually followed procedure”.

He concluded with: “Thanks. That was fun.”