Trump spends weekend watching TV and getting angry on Twitter


Developments on Day 394 of the Trump Administration:

Trump Insists “Case Closed” on Russia Investigation

Donald Trump blames Wednesday’s mass killing of 17 Florida high school students on the FBI’s involvement in the Trump-Russia investigation, and then attacks his National Security Advisor for challenging Trump’s insistence that Russia did not intervene in the 2016 election.

Rattled by Friday’s indictment of 13 Russians — including a close ally of President Vladimir Putin — over the intervention and under pressure to act, Trump used Twitter for a string of outbursts on Saturday.

Staff said that, out of claimed respect for the victims of the mass shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Trump — staying nearby at his Mar-a-Lago resort — would not play golf. Instead, he spent much of the day watching TV and tweeting.

He began with the false insistence that the indictments had cleared him and his inner circle of any collusion with Russia, proclaiming, “Case closed”.

In fact, the charges passed up by a federal grand jury in Washington are distinct from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing inquiry. He is evaluating whether the Trump campaign knew of — and even encouraged or cooperated with — Russia’s widespread hacking and dissemination of material damaging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, as well as Trump’s possible obstruction of justice in trying to shut down the investigation.

But Trump’s attempt to sweep away any Russian connection soon ran into trouble. At the Munich Security Conference, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster pointedly responded, “The evidence is now really incontrovertible [of Russian interference]….Now that this is in the arena of a law enforcement investigation it’s going to be very apparent to everyone.”

So after dinner with talk-show host Geraldo Rivera and Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric, the President returned to Twitter late Saturday evening with an attack on the FBI:

And then it was McMaster’s turn to face Presidential wrath:

Trump could at least take solace in support from Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Munich, “Until we see facts, everything else will be just blather.” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova used Facebook to mock the indictments, “13 against billions budgets of special agencies? Against intelligence and counterespionage, against the newest technologies? Absurd? – Yes.”