White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was scheduled to hold a routine press briefing at the White House on Monday. After mentioning Donald Trump's scheduled separate meetings with Bill Gates, Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, and Rex Tillerson, Spicer went on to say, "Senior Obama officials have gone on record to confirm there is no evidence of a Trump-Russia collusion." But the most interesting bit begins at 1:06:22, when a journalist asks about Trump's tweet in the morning alleging contact between the Clinton campaign and Russia. Within seconds, Spicer attempts to bring Hillary Clinton into the mess. And it's a spectacle worth watching.
Spicer's rant about Clinton sounds like an extended version of Trump's morning tweet, in which the president said, "What about all of the contact with the Clinton campaign and the Russians? Also, is it true that the DNC would not let the FBI in to look?" Spicer lamented, "Why would the DNC on multiple occasions rebuff the FBI? [...] If they were so concerned about hacks and leaking, why did the DNC not ask the FBI to come look [at their servers]? Not only did they not ask them, they rebuffed them on multiple occasions. Why? What are they hiding?"
Spicer didn't stop there. He went on to say, "There is a whole second set of concerns here in terms of what was Hillary Clinton’s role. When you look at [Obama's] history [...] the Obama administration and the Clintons' involvement with Russia in terms of donations the Clintons received from Russians entities, the idea that they sold off tremendous amount of the uranium to the Russian government, and yet where was the concern for that?"
"The Democrats and the Democratic Party and a lot of those individuals are quick to point fingers," the press secretary rambled, "and yet when it comes to their own 'collusion' or questions involving their involvement with Russian officials [...] there's no discussion there."
Today's eventful White House press briefing took place while the House Intelligence Committee conducted a hearing on the Russian election interference. According to Politico, FBI Director James Comey made his first appearance at Capitol Hill since Trump alleged Obama wiretapped communications at Trump Tower. Comey confirmed that the FBI is looking into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election, Politico reported. He also said that he possessed no information that validated Trump's claims.
If there's anything we learned from today's press conference, it's that when a journalist asks you a question about your president, you might want to stick to answering that question and avoid a rather heated tangent.
