The President tried to blame the Brits for his own self-created debacle. That wasn’t smart.
The bizarre saga of Donald Trump’s wiretapping hoax has taken a turn for the even stranger. Earlier this week I laid out how the president’s effort to pin high crimes on his predecessor without evidence—specifically the allegation that President Obama had “wiretapped” Trump Tower last year—was falling apart in public. Our Intelligence Community indicated it wasn’t true, and then Congress began to pile on.
On Wednesday, the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, including its notably Trumpophile chair, Rep. Devin Nunes, flatly stated that no wiretapping occurred. This rendered the White House’s tweet-based campaign null and void. The whole self-created debacle had alarming implications for the Trump administration, as I explained:
This is the stuff of tin-pot dictatorships—not high-functioning democratic republics. Neither does any of this inspire confidence that when a genuine crisis hits this White House—as will almost certainly happen eventually—President Trump will possess the self-discipline or grasp on reality to function as the effective leader he must be. If the current White House occupant doesn’t learn from this self-created debacle, even stormier seas are ahead for his presidency—and our country.
Wednesday was a bad day for the White House, but Thursday turned out to be even worse. First, Rep. Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, sided with his team against the president, explaining forthrightly that “no such wiretap existed.” Then the Senate joined in, with its intelligence committee’s leadership releasing a statement even stronger than its House counterpart. It minced no words:
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The XX Committee 