The first presidential tweets on Friday morning landed nearly an hour before dawn on the East Coast, and they were a doozy—even for Donald Trump.
In the span of five lengthy (for Twitter) posts, the president unleashed a series of charges, complaints, and conspiracy theories aimed at undercutting a forthcoming report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller and directing the nation’s attention, once again, back toward the opponent he defeated two years ago.
Embedded within was a familiar cast of characters (Mueller, James Comey, the Clintons) along with a new face (Andrew Weissmann, a prosecutor on Mueller’s team); an attack on Trump’s current deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein; at least one lie (that Trump did not know Jerome Corsi); a misspelling (bye when it should be by); and the introduction of a surprising new story line presenting the disgraced energy firm Enron as the victim of an overzealous prosecutor.
Let’s unpack these tweets one by one, starting with the first missive, sent at 6:18 a.m. eastern time:
Robert Mueller and Leakin’ Lyin’ James Comey are Best Friends, just one of many Mueller Conflicts of Interest. And bye the way, wasn’t the woman in charge of prosecuting Jerome Corsi (who I do not know) in charge of “legal” at the corrupt Clinton Foundation? A total Witch Hunt...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2018
Trump starts off with two of his favorite targets: Mueller and Comey, the former FBI director whose firing by the president led to Mueller’s appointment just a few months into Trump’s presidency. Comey happens to be meeting behind closed doors Friday with the House Judiciary Committee after Republicans rejected his request to testify in a public hearing. Mueller and Comey worked together for years at the highest levels of the Justice Department, but to call them “best friends” is probably an exaggeration.