It took a day, but Donald Trump finally got to his Twitter account and is unleashing a meltdown full of lies, deceptions, misdirections, and dodges after Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians for election interference.
Trump tweeted:
The Fake News Media never fails. Hard to ignore this fact from the Vice President of Facebook Ads, Rob Goldman! https://t.co/XGC7ynZwYJ
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018
Funny how the Fake News Media doesn’t want to say that the Russian group was formed in 2014, long before my run for President. Maybe they knew I was going to run even though I didn’t know!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018
Deputy A.G. Rod Rosenstein stated at the News Conference: “There is no allegation in the indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018
“Charges Deal Don A Big Win,” written by Michael Goodwin of the @nypost, succinctly states that “the Russians had no impact on the election results.” There was no Collusion with the Trump Campaign. “She lost the old-fashioned way, by being a terrible candidate. Case closed.”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018
Trump is making 3 false arguments
1). Trump is twisting the indictment to vindicate himself and his campaign. The Russian indictment was just a small slice of the investigation into how Russians used social media to spread false information, sow discord, support Trump, and oppose Clinton. The indictment was not the last word on the Russia investigation. What Rosenstein said was that no American was knowingly involved in this piece of the Russian operation. He did not say that the Trump campaign was not involved with Russia in any way.
2). Trump is cherry picking the timeline. The indictment does say that the Russian operations began in 2014, but this is also shortly after Trump returned from hosting the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. The Russians began interfering to support Trump in June of 2016, not 2014. Until that time they had been spreading false information against Hillary Clinton.
3). Trump is arguing that the Russian ad spending didn’t matter. Russian ads targeted 141 million Americans on Facebook during the election. To put this into perspective, Trump has 47.9 million Twitter followers half of which according to independent analysis are fake.
Trump is freaking out over the legitimacy of his presidency
The last tweet in the list that Trump posted is really what his meltdown is about. Trump knows that most Americans have questions about the legitimacy of his presidency. The Russian social media operation doesn’t connect to the Trump campaign directly, but it is proof that the Russians influenced the election for Trump. In other words, Trump’s win wasn’t a pure expression of the will of the American people.
The White House kept Trump away from Twitter for a day, but they couldn’t prevent the meltdown, but the Russia scandal is the dark cloud of illegitimacy that hangs over Trump.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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