Trump's Oval Office Meeting with the Russians Was Even Worse Than We Thought
You might have thought it was a bad idea for President Trump to meet with Russian officials the morning after he fired the FBI director leading an investigation into possible collusion with Russia. You might have thought it was a worse idea to exclude American press, or to omit from the official White House account that Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who's at the center of the investigation, was in attendance. (American learned this from photos circulated by Russian media.) And you might have thought it was an even worse idea for Trump to reveal classified information to Kislyak and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during the meeting. But you ain't seen nothin' yet.
The New York Times reports that Trump also had a few choice words for the Russians about the FBI director, James Comey, whom he defenestrated last week. Originally, the White House's position was that Comey was fired on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who cited the FBI director's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation during the campaign. This was obviously a sham, which Trump revealed the next day when he told Lester Holt he would've fired Comey regardless of what Rosenstein had to say. (Rosenstein backed up this version, telling a Senate committee that Trump had already decided to fire Comey before he wrote his letter.) But after Trump saw the backlash to his seeming honesty, he and his staff backtracked to the recommendation line.
Today's Times report further undercuts that:
"I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job," Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off." Mr. Trump added, "I'm not under investigation."
Leave aside, for a moment, that the president has added "nut job" to "showboat" and "grandstander" to the list of terms he's used to refer to the former FBI director. Trump told senior Russian officials, in the Oval Office, that he fired Comey to relieve the pressure of an investigation into whether their government was colluding with his campaign. Like so many things coming out of the White House lately, this seems both sinister and utterly moronic. But the takeaway, as it has been for some time, is that the president's primary consideration in firing the FBI director was the FBI's Russia investigation.
There's reason to think Trump was right to be concerned. A near simultaneous report from The Washington Post indicates the probe has reached a current White House official-one described as "a senior White House adviser" and "close to the president." Happy Friday.
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