A 140-Character Flaw
It’s hard for a new administration to avoid controversy, but must Trump create it out of thin air?
.. What makes the furor over President Trump’s wiretapping claims so remarkable is how unnecessary it is. The flap didn’t arise from events outside of the administration’s control, nor was it a clever trap sprung by its adversaries. The president went out of his way to initiate it. He picked up his phone and tweeted allegations that he had no idea were true or not, either to distract from what he thought was a bad news cycle, or to vent, or both.
.. at the very least has diverted him and his team from much more important work on Capitol Hill, where his agenda will rise or fall. In an alternative and more conventional universe, the White House would be crowing over Judge Gorsuch’s testimony before Congress.
.. Since the wiretapping allegations, Spicer’s days have been spent in the semantics, air quotes, and epistemological gymnastics necessary to support Trump’s claims.
.. All he has to say is that he accepts his FBI director’s statement and that he doesn’t want to talk about it any more.
.. It’s hard to see why the Russians would have had to involve Trump associates in what should have been a simple two-step process: 1) hack Democratic accounts; 2) give the resulting information to WikiLeaks. But Comey’s acknowledgement of the investigation will stoke the darkest suspicions of the Left.