Tucked into The Washington Post story revealing that Donald Trump personally dictated Don Jr.'s false statement regarding his meeting with the Kremlin-linked lawyer are several paragraphs that reveal exactly why Trump is such a menace to himself. Amid a handful of investigations into his administration—including one led by a DOJ-appointed special counsel—Trump still has no idea he could be in legal trouble.
“He refuses to sit still,” the presidential adviser said. “He doesn’t think he’s in any legal jeopardy, so he really views this as a political problem he is going to solve by himself.”
Trump has said that the Russia investigation is “the greatest witch hunt in political history,” calling it an elaborate hoax created by Democrats to explain why Clinton lost an election she should have won.
Because Trump believes he is innocent, some advisers explained, he therefore does not think he is at any legal risk for a coverup. In his mind, they said, there is nothing to conceal.
Trump truly doesn't live in enough of a reality-based world to understand that he and many members of his family could be at serious legal risk. Or perhaps he just thinks he can solve everything through the power of pardons. Whatever the case, he's immune to functioning as someone who knows they need to exhibit caution and distance themselves from certain matters in his administration.
So when the smoking gun story emerges linking his son to a meeting that could directly prove Trump's campaign tried to collude with Russia to win the election, instead of steering clear, Trump literally puts his prints all over that gun by personally creating a false statement about the event.
If we have to suffer through the country being led by a guy who's clearly unhinged, perhaps we can take solace in the fact that Trump is his own worst enemy—and not just in a political sense. His complete disassociation with reality is literally sinking him from a legal standpoint.