Not tweeting is always a good idea, but Trump has been tweeting a lot. The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that he was being investigated for obstruction of by special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump has responded by returning to the last good thing that happened to him, the 2016 election.
Why is that Hillary Clintons family and Dems dealings with Russia are not looked at, but my non-dealings are?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2017
Crooked H destroyed phones w/ hammer, 'bleached' emails, & had husband meet w/AG days before she was cleared- & they talk about obstruction?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2017
Crooked H destroyed phones w/ hammer, 'bleached' emails, & had husband meet w/AG days before she was cleared- & they talk about obstruction?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2017
There are a couple of reasons why Trump’s interactions with Russia matter more than Clinton’s. The first is that he is president and she is not. The second is that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election to benefit Hillary Clinton—it did so to benefit Donald Trump. And the third is that Hillary Clinton’s former campaign advisers didn’t repeatedly lie about their meetings with the Russians—Donald Trump’s did.
That Trump is bringing up the tarmac meeting between Lynch and Bill Clinton is also very strange, because it mirrors Trump’s own interactions with James Comey—with the important difference, as Vox’s Matt Yglesias notes, that Donald Trump is president and Bill Clinton was not. By drawing attention to Clinton’s alleged obstruction of justice, Trump is undermining his own claim that he did not obstruct justice.
All of this seems desperate. Trump has been searching for a foil for the last six months and hasn’t yet found one, so he keeps going back to Hillary Clinton. But even Trump has to sense that Clinton-bashing will not save him.