Thread by @SethAbramson

Said "no collusion" 16 times; claimed "absolute right" to "do what he wants" at DOJ the second he feels he personally isn't being treated "fairly" (i.e., is accused of anything); said protecting a president is part of an Attorney General's job (it's not). nytimes.com/2017/12/28/us/…

2/ He lied about Manafort (who worked for him for six months, not three and a half, and who Trump *did* know prior to that) and he lied about having "stayed uninvolved" with the Russia probe (he fired Comey, threatened Yates and McCabe, tampered with Flynn and Don Jr., and more).

3/ Every time Trump speaks on Russia it's a damn trash fire.

4/ Here are excerpts from this trash fire of an interview that largely comprised (when the subject was Russia) thinly veiled, "happy warrior"-like threats against *everybody* involved in the ongoing Russia investigation: nytimes.com/2017/12/28/us/…

5/ In the paragraph below, every sentence after "yeah" is a lie.

And "yeah" is in a sense a lie too—as Trump is only "okay with [the reporter] recording" (what he's saying "yeah" in response to) because he wants all the lies he tells after "yeah" to be recorded and distributed.

6/ This is the second paragraph of the interview. Every sentence in this paragraph is a lie.

I've said it before: when Trump speaks, reporters must hunt for the *true* statements—not the lies. It's a critical skill-set in reporting on Donald Trump, and too few are exercising it.

7/ Five lies about Paul Manafort in a single paragraph—and actually more, if we acknowledge that Manafort was an unpaid adviser to Trump, by the campaign's own admission, from March 2016 through February of 2017 (and that's just what we know of).

8/ See my recent thread on "20 Things Guilty People Do That Trump Does Daily" (link:

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).

This is #11.

9/ This was going to make "20 Things Guilty People Do That Trump Does Daily" but I didn't want the list to go on forever. #21: FAKED CONCERN FOR INVESTIGATORS, WITNESSES, OR BYSTANDERS.

Bill O'Reilly cited the effect of accusations on his kids; Trump here does it with America.

10/ This could be from Orwell—especially as every part of it is a lie: "No. 1, there's no collusion, No. 2, collusion is not a crime, but even if it was a crime, there was no collusion....[t]here is no collusion, and even if there was, it’s not a crime. But there’s no collusion."

11/ TRUMP: "They made the Russian story up as a hoax, as a ruse, as an excuse for losing an election."

Can I state the obvious? Can I? Can we just get this "hoax" thing over once and for all?

OK: The Russia issue first came up SIX MONTHS BEFORE ELECTION DAY, you fecking MORON.

12/ Trump loves to say how everyone thought Hillary would win. Oh yeah? Then Steele knew Hillary would win when he began giving parts of his dossier to the FBI in June of 2016.

So why would he create an "excuse for losing an election" both he and media *knew* Clinton would win?

13/ TRUMP: No, no, the Democrats thought Russia would be a one-day story—an excuse—and it just kept going and going and going.

This is my favorite part of the interview: Trump manages to express faked concern for the *Democrats* over a one-day lie which—he says—got out of hand.

14/ TRUMP: I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest CPA.

My second-favorite line, as it confirms Trump *knows* he can release his tax returns *even when they are under audit*.

Because "the greatest CPA" knows that, and Trump—he says—knows more.