Considering that Donald Trump spent the week tweeting out Islamophobic snuff films and re-rethinking birtherism, it might seem that he was already kind of keyed up. But no. According those on the inside, Trump had a great Thanksgiving holiday. Lots of golf. Some turkey. Some of that really good chocolate cake. Trump was in the zone.
During his visit to Mar-a-Lago last weekend, according to friends who spoke to him there, Trump shrugged off the Russia investigation, telling people it would all be wrapped up soon and citing Cobb's advice with confidence, even though some of his close outside advisers have for months been lobbying him to shake up his legal team.
Trump’s lawyer, Ty Cobb, has been full of cheery predictions. So while back in the summer Trump was calling senators left and right trying to put the brakes on the Russia investigation, for the last few weeks he’s put Russia out of his mind. He’s been just practicing signing that tax bill that is like a $1 billion check made out to Donald J Trump, with barely enough extra time to plot how he can oust Rex Tillerson just in time to make him pay a penalty on his Exxon options.
And then … boom.
Flynn’s plea was an especially heavy blow to the president, who had been telling friends for weeks that his “brilliant” legal team was confident that the investigation was wrapping up and that Christmas would bring the gift he wanted most — a letter of exoneration.
That … is not how things are going. And the cheery notes no longer seem so reassuring.
There is a growing sense of dread among Trump’s closest confidants that the noose is tightening — if not around the president, then around his closest advisers and family members.
No matter how many coffee pots Trump hurled through the White House, there was someone who had
a very good day.
Like a Greek chorus appearing from the wings came a tweet by James B. Comey, the FBI director fired in February after Trump allegedly asked Comey to let his former national security adviser off the hook.
“But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,” Comey wrote, citing words of the Old Testament prophet Amos that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
It’s worth noting that James Comey is no hero. Were it not for Comey’s multiple ego-driven mishandlings of the email server business, Trump would very likely be sitting in Trump Tower, abusing some PA on The Apprentice. Still, it’s hard not to like the sick-burniness of Comey’s morning tweet.
At the other end of the spectrum, it would be easy to speculate that Ty Cobb’s day was less than super. He did take the time to draft a note describing Michael Flynn as a “former Obama administration official,” but some of those in the White House were already starting to suspect that, behind his giant crazy-dude mustache, was hiding a Pollyanna.
People close to the White House said Trump’s rosy view of the probe comes straight from his lawyer, Ty Cobb, who has repeatedly predicted that the investigation will wrap up quickly without ensnaring the president. …
Some Republicans outside the White House have privately raised concerns that Cobb is not serving the president well and is overly confident about the president’s exposure. Still, other people close to the White House nonetheless think Cobb is on to something.
That last sentence might be true … if you take out the word “to.”