Trump’s Cover-Up Accelerates
The president directed his attorney general to declassify information—raising the prospect of selective disclosures.
President Donald Trump can only escalate. He cannot help it. On Thursday night, he spread from his own presidential account of the speaker of the House, edited to splice together moments when she stumbled over her words, in an apparent effort to deceive people into thinking her drunk or ill. In 2016, Trump his attorney general to declassify documents in an effort to depict Trump’s campaign as a victim of improper surveillance in 2016. Trump tweeted that the attorney general had “requested” these powers. That may even be true. But Trump has been demanding such an investigation of U.S. intelligence agencies since long before William Barr got the top law-enforcement job. Barr is compliant and complicit, but the idea is all Trump’s.
