Donald Trump seems engaged in either a thought experiment, something along the lines of “in a town where no one shaves themselves and everyone goes to the barber, who shaves the barber,” or that classic kindergarten bit of wittery in which one kid grabs another by the wrist, smashes their hand against their face, and says “Why do you keep punching yourself?” Because Donald Trump’s tweets on Tuesday morning make up a sort of, well, certainly not a “logic puzzle.”
As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism. I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.....
There’s an ellipsis at the end that tweet, meaning that we can expect Trump to come back with a second part somewhere between five minutes from now and never. In any case, this brief tweet seems to demand some annotation. “I have been asking Director Comey”—who I fired for doing his job and not taking a personal loyalty oath to me—“and others”—my loyal minions who did take personal loyalty oaths, at the cost of their souls — “to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community”—and … nope. Stop. This is where it gets hard.
Because in this case, what Donald Trump seems to be saying is that he spilled classified information directly to the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador, information that came from an ally with the understanding that the United States would hold it at the highest secrecy level, and that’s okay. But someone told the American public what I did, and that’s not.
Perhaps some illumination would help, with little orange monks scribing on tiny tablets. Or if the whole thing was displayed in mirror writing. Or maybe this tweet would clear things up …
WH/NSC spokesman Mike Anton emphatically denies that Pres Trump's tweets today confirm disclosure of classified material to Russia.
But Donald Trump just bragged about sharing those “facts pertaining to terrorism.” If it wasn’t classified, then why didn’t he tell all of us? Non-classified information about airline flight safety … shouldn’t that be something that the President let’s Americans know, as well as Russians? And how can anyone be a leaker, much less a LEAKER, if all the information shared was unclassified?
The toughest kind of logic test? The kind with no logic to it. The kind that represents a venal man following his instinct to display his goods, and then getting caught in front of the world. A man so utterly undeserving of any loyalty, that not only did someone take the story to the Washington Post, but the New York Times, and CNN, and Reuters.
There are really two parts to the solution of this “puzzle.”
First, Donald Trump is the only real “leaker” in this picture—the only one who handed out valuable, classified information in a way that endangered the United States, allies, and agents on the ground.
Second, Donald Trump is so demonstrably undeserving of loyalty that when it comes to who “leaked” his actions, the solution is like of Murder on the Orient Express. Everyone. Everyone did it.
Third, Donald Trump is extremely concerned about loyalty, but only to himself. He regularly betrays others in his administration and demonstrably betrays our allies. That’s why, no matter how many oaths he applies, no one is actually loyal to Trump.