'Premature exoneration'? Trump allies wonder if he bungled the conclusion of the Mueller investigation.

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

published 5 April 2019

President Trump was publicly exuberant when Attorney General William Barr released his four-page recap of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report, and in private he was "pumping his fist with excitement when he recounted the good news to his allies," Politico reports, citing a person told about his reaction. "But every victory lap has a finish line — and Trump appears to be approaching his," Gabriel Sherman writes at Vanity Fair.

Trump's "response to the Barr letter was overplayed," a former West Wing official told Vanity Fair. A Republican close to the White House agreed that the Mueller denouement is a prime example of Trump getting "oversold on things," adding: "The White House realizes the report may have a lot of sh-t in it." Jimmy Fallon diagnosed Trump with "premature exoneration" on Thursday's Tonight Show.

The quick end to the post-Mueller victory lap was accelerated when "misfortune and mayhem almost immediately began piling up," Politico recaps:

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Trump unleashed two new political crises — one on health care, one on the Mexican border — and then retreated on both of them. A brief lull in House Democratic oversight action ended abruptly when House investigators demanded his tax returns. And news reports revealed that Mueller's soon-to-be-released findings may be far more damaging than Attorney General William Barr has publicly indicated, suggesting that the Russia scandal is hardly in the president's rear view window. ...On Thursday, the House approved a Senate measure cutting off U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's military campaign in Yemen, a plan the White House opposed. ... A day before, the House released information that showed Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, was denied a security clearance last year because of concerns about foreign influence, private business interests, and personal conduct. The weekend arrest of a Chinese woman carrying a malware-laced device into Trump's Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, only added to the growing questions about presidential information security. [Politico]

Well, there's always the next investigation.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.