During the pre-Super Bowl interview President Donald Trump gave to CBS News Sunday, the topics ranged from immigration, the border wall, and the economy to the Russia investigation. And it was that last topic — the investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller — where Trump tipped his hand and admitted he’s going to try and deep-six the Mueller report.
When asked by Margaret Brennan about the Russia probe, Trump began by trying to suggest that all of the indictments and guilty pleas were for crimes that are no big deal and had nothing to do with him:
“Of the 34 people, many of them were bloggers from Moscow or they were people that had nothing to do with me, had nothing to do with what they’re talking about, or there were people that got caught telling a fib or telling a lie.”
But as Business Insider notes, calling the Russian hackers who stole emails from the Democratic National Committee and leaked them through WikiLeaks, “bloggers” doesn’t correctly portray what was done on Trump’s behalf by Russia:
“The ‘bloggers’ the president referenced are 12 Russian military intelligence officers and 13 Russian nationals working for a troll farm supported by the Kremlin. By calling them bloggers, Trump appeared to be echoing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that many of the Russians who were indicted are merely independent hackers who are not aligned with the Kremlin.”
And when the topic turned to Trump’s longtime friend and confidant, Roger Stone, who was indicted last week on charges including obstruction and witness tampering, Trump did everything but claim Stone was just a coffee boy:
“First of all, Roger Stone didn’t work on the campaign, except way, way at the beginning, long before we’re talking about.”
Brennan then asked directly about the report the special counsel is planning to issue at the end of his investigation, and that’s when Trump admitted he plans to try and obstruct justice yet again. Would he elect to have the Mueller report made public? Brennan asked. Trump responded that was “totally up to the attorney general.” But he then added:
“I don’t know. It depends. I have no idea what it’s going to say.”
Translation: If the report implicates me in criminal acts, I’m gonna do everything I can to try and kill it.
So, if you were wondering whether or not Donald Trump is guilty, his own words convict him, just as we always knew they would.