WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump unleashed a series of tweets Monday in which he tried to place the blame for Russian meddling in U.S. politics on former President Barack Obama and deflect charges of obstruction and collusion onto his predecessor.
Trump wrote that Obama did “NOTHING about Russia after being notified by the CIA of meddling” because he expected Hillary Clinton to win. Trump added that Obama “didn’t ‘choke,’ he colluded or obstructed.”
Trump, who has a long history of deflecting criticism from himself to others, seemed to be trying to redefine what it means to collude or obstruct as he pushed back against an investigation into whether Trump’s own team colluded with Russian officials during the campaign and transition.
Trump appeared to be referencing a Washington Post story about the Obama administration’s handling of Russia’s attempts to influence voters in which some officials questioned whether the president had done enough to stop Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Obama ordered a review of Russia’s actions and imposed new sanctions after the election.
Meanwhile, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, revealed through his attorney that he has turned to a prominent defense lawyer, Abbe Lowell, to represent him in Russia-related investigations.
Lowell won the acquittal of former Sen. John Edwards in a campaign finance prosecution in North Carolina and currently represents New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez in a corruption case that’s pending trial.
Different definition
As president, Trump has frequently disparaged the Russia probe as a “witch hunt” promoted by Democrats. Monday’s tweets appeared aimed at delegitimizing some of the allegations frequently hurled at him by his political opponents.
He tweeted that after months of reviewing Russia “under a magnifying glass, they have zero ‘tapes’ of T people colluding. There is no collusion & no obstruction. I should be given apology!”
Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who has written about public corruption, said Trump appeared to be taking the term “obstruction,” which means impeding an investigation, and applying it to a decision by his predecessor not to pursue an investigation as vigorously as possible.
“Inaction is not an obstruction, but of course it has some potency as a political attack,” Henning said.
