title:  Ranting Trump Accidentally Confirms He Is Under Investigation After Staff Claimed It Was Fake News
text: On Trump s birthday, the Washington Post published an explosive story alleging that the FBI under Mueller s direction was currently investigating Trump for obstruction of justice for his treatment of former FBI director James Comey.The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia s role in the 2016 election is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, officials said.The move by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate Trump s conduct marks a major turning point in the nearly year-old FBI investigation, which until recently focused on Russian meddling during the presidential campaign and on whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Investigators have also been looking for any evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates, officials said.Trump has no one to blame for this new line of inquiry but himself. In testimony his staff hasn t even bothered denying, Comey noted that Trump once asked everyone to leave the room before directly asking the FBI director if he could find a way to drop the Russia investigation. Then Trump fired Comey when the investigation continued. Then he went into an interview with NBC s Lester Holt and explicitly admitted that he fired Comey because he wouldn t stop investigating his connections to Russia.Rather than make his problems go away, firing Comey and Trump s subsequent confession seem to have triggered a new investigation   this time in his attempts to obstruct justice by interrupting the investigative process.Despite the avalanche of evidence against him, Trump s team had a painfully predictable response: To accuse the Washington Post of lying. In the hours after publishing, Trump staff and friends repeatedly claimed there was no investigation into Trump. They screamed  fake news. The chairwoman of the RNC went further, claiming Mueller had smeared Trump with  unfounded accusations.  (Hint: Mueller hasn t even commented publicly yet. And an investigation isn t an  accusation. )Mueller's unfounded accusation against @POTUS changes nothing. There's still no proof of obstruction of justice. https://t.co/gY7pcfD4yj  Ronna RomneyMcDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) June 15, 2017Then Trump woke up and promptly confirmed it was real.They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2017The  they  here appears to be the investigators looking into Trump. The 71-year-old man throwing a temper tantrum on Twitter seemed to reinforce that when his follow-up tweet included an attack on the investigators themselves.You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history   led by some very bad and conflicted people! #MAGA  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2017Saying  conflicted  people was the tell. Trump s teams latest attack on Mueller   a pretext to firing him, some might say   is that he has a  conflict of interest  in the case. It s never clearly articulated what that conflict of interest is Trump has repeatedly implicated himself in wrongdoing despite his staff s best efforts. In hushed tones, White House aides are telling reporters that they are furious with the president who they say is completely to blame for this endless investigation. Trump may be really good at getting into trouble, but he is terrible at getting out of it.In his rage and panic, he s managed to step on every rake in the yard. How long before he finds a way to say he is totally guilty in 140 characters or less?Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images