Sure, that’s not exactly a news bulletin, but it is something that should be pointed out more often.
With Devin Nunes loyally trotting over to Trumpany Hall to slip them word that the FBI may have happened on some Trump talk while investigating crimes, White House press secretary Sean Spicer first decided to claim this as vindication of Trump’s tweet storm. And he was shocked—shocked!—to find that people might think his boss’ voice showing up in the middle of an FBI investigation might be a bad thing instead of something to celebrate.
“All of the questions are in the presumptive negative towards us as opposed to, 'Why was this [surveillance] taking place.”
Just offhand, it could be because Nunes indicated that the FBI investigation that may have netted Trump info was collected legally, meaning that any locker-room talk caught on tape was likely between Trump and someone with a coveted spot on the most-wanted list.
Asked whether Trump should have known that Paul Manafort, the guy he was hiring for his campaign chair, was a Russian agent, Spicer had a quick quip.
“Should he ask who he played with in the sandbox?”
Yeah, hilarious. But Manafort’s fetch-and-carry for Moscow wasn’t ancient history. His work to build a nice “tonight we take over the world” plan for Putin was in 2005. His work for the pro-Russian Party of Regions was literally the last thing he’d done before he climbed on the Trump train, and Manafort may have still been pocketing rubles after he started working for Trump.