Did Trump just acknowledge (in a tweet, of course) that he told Comey to back off Michael Flynn?
Trump appears to be using two parallel arguments: I didn’t tell Comey to back off Flynn. Or maybe I did — and that would be okay, too.
Both cannot be true. Trump either talked to Comey about Flynn (whether it was in a way that made Comey feel he was being directed by the president to drop the FBI investigation is another matter). Or he didn’t.
This is actually a pattern for Trump. He often muddies the waters on negative news stories about him in a way that gives him mutually exclusive avenues of defense. Just a few examples off the top off my head
On Jared Kushner:
When The Washington Post reported that Russia-to-Russia communications claimed that presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner tried to set up a back channel with the Russians, White House aides went on TV immediately to defend Kushner.
The next day, Trump tweeted a Fox News article (yet another pattern) that reported Kushner did not attempt to create such a back channel. Trump later deleted the tweet, according to FactBase, which archives his tweets and other communications.
On the firing of Comey
When Trump suddenly fired Comey in May, his administration — including Vice President Pence — said it was because of the way the FBI chief had handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. But then Trump went on TV and said: Nah, it was because of this “Russia thing.”
On the travel ban
Trump’s White House asked the Supreme Court to reinstate its much-maligned travel ban. Then Trump proceeded to completely undermine his team’s legal case for the ban in four tweets.
Trump, to put it mildly, is really, really bad at staying on his administration’s message. When he’s on the defensive, he’s really, really good at confusing that message — to the point where voters can kind of choose their own adventure about what to believe.
The problem is that, to have it both ways, Trump sometimes ends up admitting things he probably didn’t want to. And, thanks to his rush to defend himself, it’s now fair to ask whether the president is acknowledging that he told Comey to back off Flynn, 24 hours after Trump’s lawyer denied it.