Trump’s blame game is a losing proposition
and chairman of the House intelligence committee, plans to look into Clinton’s role in a 2010 uranium deal that became a favorite attack line by candidate Trump. Fine. I would not stand in the way of officeholder’s accountability to public scrutiny. But that doesn’t excuse Team Trump from similar scrutiny.
After that “Crooked Hillary” tweet, Trump added this: “Also, there is NO COLLUSION!”
Well, not so fast. Even as Trump tapped out that presidential tweet, newer news broke: The FBI has evidence of — Surprise! Surprise! — collusion.
Foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos secretly pleaded guilty three weeks earlier, it turned out, to charges that he lied to FBI agents about meetings he had during last year’s presidential campaign with Kremlin-connected Russians who claimed to have “dirt” about Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
News of the plea came as Manafort and Gates were charged with conspiracy to launder money, making false statements and other charges related to their work advising a political party in Ukraine that is friendly to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Papadopoulos, according to court filings, was told by an unidentified “professor” with Kremlin contacts — since identified as Joseph Mifsud of Scotland’s University of Stirling — that Russians had “dirt” on Clinton, including “thousands of emails.” This came a month after Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails were hacked in March.
As Mueller’s investigation moves closer into Trump’s inner circle, Watergate-style questions arise, such as “What did the president know and when did he know it?” In Trump’s case, the question of what he did not know is just as appropriate.
However he may have handled his affairs in the private sector, he was poorly prepared in many ways for the extra accountability that public-sector jobs entail, especially in the White House. In Trump’s case, I can’t help but wonder not only about what he didn’t know but also why he didn’t seem to care — as long as he had someone else to blame.