Trump’s Evolution From Relief to Fury Over the Russia Indictment

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump began the weekend believing that something good had just happened to him. An indictment leveled against 13 Russians for interfering with the 2016 election had not accused him or anyone around him of wrongdoing. “No collusion” was his refrain.

But once ensconced at his Florida estate on Friday, Mr. Trump, facing long hours indoors as he avoided breezy rounds of golf after last week’s school shooting a few miles away, began watching TV.

The president’s mood began to darken as it became clearer to him that some commentators were portraying the indictment as nothing for him to celebrate, according to three people with knowledge of his reaction. Those commentators called it proof that he had not won the election on his own, a particularly galling, if not completely accurate, charge for a president long concerned about his legitimacy.

What followed was a two-day Twitter tirade that was unusually angry and defiant even by Mr. Trump’s standards. In his tweets on Sunday, Mr. Trump sought to shift the blame to Democrats for Russia’s meddling, saying that President Barack Obama had not done enough to stop the interference.

The president denied — despite the ample evidence to the contrary — that he had ever suggested that Moscow might not have been involved. He called Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, a “monster.” And he asserted that the Russians were “laughing their asses off” because the efforts to investigate and combat Moscow’s meddling had only given the Russians what they wanted.

 Source : nytimes