A cloud over the White House

After Trump’s extended Twitter-diatribe, he took a break by meeting with Netanyahu and holding a joint press conference with him. He didn’t insult his guest by talking about issues important to Israel the whole time though.

President Trump lashed out at the nation’s intelligence agencies again on Wednesday, saying that his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, was brought down by illegal leaks to the news media, on a day of new disclosures about the Trump camp’s dealings with Russia during and after the presidential campaign.

“From intelligence, papers are being leaked, things are being leaked,” Mr. Trump said at a White House news conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. “It’s a criminal action, criminal act, and it’s been going on for a long time before me, but now it’s really going on. And people are trying to cover up for a terrible loss that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton.”

I’m sure Netanyahu was very pleased to be allowed to listen in on that conversation.

The Times on Wednesday* disclosed broader contacts between Russian intelligence officials and people with ties to the Trump campaign and Mr. Trump’s business empire during and after the campaign, and other news organizations followed with similar reports. The president declined to address that revelation and, as he has at other times in recent days, took questions at his news conference only from conservative news organizations, and ignored more challenging questions shouted to him as he left the podium.

So far, the White House has had little success in trying to shift the narrative from the Russian contacts to accusations about the leaking of sensitive information by the intelligence agencies, as well as by the F.B.I.

*Tuesday

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump said on Twitter, “The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred. @MSNBC & @CNN are unwatchable. @foxandfriends is great!”

The president also praised a column by Eli Lake of Bloomberg View, which criticized the selective leaking of intercepted communications between Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kislyak. Mr. Lake went on to suggest, however, that Mr. Flynn had been sacrificed to protect other officials, potentially including the president himself.

Well we can’t expect Trump to read an entire article all the way to the end.

Lindsey Graham has put out a statement saying this shit needs to be investigated.

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