So How Did Trump’s “Spygate” Tantrum Hit in the Echo Chamber?

Last updated on: May 24, 2018 at 7:14 am by Susan Wright

So How Did Trump’s “Spygate” Tantrum Hit in the Echo Chamber? 2018-05-24T07:14:57-04:00 Susan Wright

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It’s because everything is a show to him. Everything he does is a play for ratings.

So utterly incompetent is the man, that he is incapable of addressing any issue without hyperbole or dramatic effect.

On Wednesday morning, President Trump began the day with a series of spastic tweets, raging against what he called the “criminal deep state,” and “Spygate,” the name he decided to slap on the case of Stefan A. Halper, the former Cambridge University professor who apparently contacted several members of the Trump campaign, after it was discovered some within the campaign had relationships with Russian entities.

Of course, nobody spied on Trump or his campaign. It was the Russians attempting to infiltrate his campaign that were the subject of spying, if that’s a word you want to use.

And Trump definitely wanted to use that word.

In fact, he confided to someone close about his actual thoughts, regarding Halper.

Trump now is zeroing in on — and at times embellishing — reports that a longtime U.S. government informant approached members of his 2016 campaign during the presidential election in a possible bid to glean intelligence on Russian efforts to sway the election. He tweeted Wednesday morning that the FBI has been caught in a “major SPY scandal.”

There was nothing “major” about it, and Trump’s paranoia was ridiculous.

It remains unclear what, if any, spying was done. The White House has given no evidence to support Trump’s claim that the Obama administration was trying to spy on his 2016 campaign for political reasons. It’s long been known that the FBI was looking into Russian meddling during the campaign and that part of that inquiry touched on the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russian figures.

Trump has told confidants in recent days that the revelation of an informant was potential evidence that the upper echelon of federal law enforcement has conspired against him, according to three people familiar with his recent conversations but not authorized to discuss them publicly. Trump told one ally this week that he wanted “to brand” the informant a “spy,” believing the more nefarious term would resonate more in the media and with the public.

He went on to debut the term “Spygate” on Wednesday, despite its previous associations with a 2007 NFL scandal over videotaping coaches.

This isn’t the way a sitting U.S. president should be reacting, especially given the seriousness of having a hostile foreign power attempt to interfere in a U.S. election or infiltrate the campaign of someone running for the presidency.

Trump has fought this investigation from the beginning, often with the aid of other Republicans. As president, it should be his mission to fight to assure that every detail is uncovered and our system is made secure.

For some reason, he’s not doing that. He’s fighting against our nation’s intelligence community.

We may only have to deal with Trump another two years. We can’t say for sure, and 2020 is not guaranteed to him.

Right now, I shudder to think of what we’ll be left with, if he insists on going forward with “enemies lists” and the theatrics.

This is not the way to run a republic.

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