(SALON) – This past weekend, President Donald Trump tweeted a confession to the world that his top campaign operatives, Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner. had knowingly met with emissaries of the Russian government to receive information on his opponent, which he characterized as perfectly legal and routine, while also insisting that he knew nothing about it. In a previous era, this would have been a shocking development that would likely lead to impeachment. Regardless of the legality (and plenty of experts say it was indeed illegal) it was certainly unethical and unpatriotic.
There have been other cases in which campaigns were given stolen information. They went to the authorities with the information. They didn't respond "I love it," and then gather the campaign's top guns to hear the pitch. (The one exception that we know of is that paragon of virtue Richard Nixon, of course, and the "Chenault Affair.")
Trump is obviously very agitated. That tweet and dozens more, along with his increasingly unhinged rally appearances over the past few weeks, show a man under pressure who is not handling it well. That chaos is starting to catch up with him in a way he doesn't seem to expect or understand.
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