Less tweeting, lawyers beg, 'Covfefe,' US President says

Every lawyer consulted by White House aides in recent days has pointed about the president's tweets

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when President Trump refrained from flamethrowing messages on Twitter.

That time is over.

Never mind that his aides have asked him to stop. Never mind that now the lawyers have told him to stop. Even though his White House has been warned that tweets could be used as evidence against him, Mr. Trump has made clear in the days after returning from a largely Twitter-free overseas trip that he fully intends to stick to his favorite means of communication.

Since the weekend, he has gone after favorite targets, like the “fake news” media, Congress and Hillary Clinton, and even some new ones, like Germany and the comic Kathy Griffin. He denounced the “witch hunt” investigations into contacts between his associates and Russia. And he fomented a worldwide mystery with a middle-of-the-night post that introduced a new word to the language: “covfefe.”

Throughout last year’s campaign and into the early months of his presidency, the concern among Mr. Trump’s advisers was mainly political. Every time the president let loose with one of his 140-character blasts, it distracted from his agenda and touched off a media frenzy that could last for days. But now the worry has turned increasingly legal. With multiple investigations looking at whether the president’s associates collaborated with Russia to influence the election, any random, unfiltered tweet could become part of a legal case.

Trump Lashes Out at Kathy Griffin and Democrats MAY 31, 2017

“There is a reason for the old lawyer’s proverb — the fish got hooked because it opened its mouth,” said Robert F. Bauer, a White House counsel under President Barack Obama. “Tweeting spontaneous thoughts and feelings may be emotionally satisfying in the middle of the night, but Mr. Trump’s lawyers will surely remind him that there are always fishermen around, casting their lines.”

More than ever before, the White House is looking at the Russia case through a legal prism and hoping to wall it off from day-to-day governance. The president’s aides are assembling a team of lawyers, including some who would join the staff and others who would remain outside the White House. Individual aides are also shopping for lawyers.

At his daily briefing Wednesday, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, refused to address matters related to the Russia investigations, saying that from now on all such inquiries should go to Marc E. Kasowitz, the president’s personal lawyer. Mr. Kasowitz’s office, which was still setting up operations, said it had no comment on Wednesday.

Mr. Spicer offered no explanation for the president’s curious tweet posted after midnight on Wednesday: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.” It seemed likely he meant “coverage” and intended to say more, but social media users around the globe traded theories and jokes about the meaning of “covfefe.”

Mr. Spicer seemed to suggest it was either an inside joke or a kind of code. “The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant,” he said in total seriousness and then refused to elaborate.

His tone contrasted with that of his boss, who seemed amused by the attention and joked about it in a tweet when he woke up Wednesday morning. “Who can figure out the true meaning of ‘covfefe’???” Mr. Trump wrote. “Enjoy!”

Every lawyer consulted by White House aides in recent days has made the same point about the president’s tweets: He can power through the investigations, but he is his own worst enemy if he continues to vent online. The lawyers noted that Mr. Trump’s words have already been used against him in court cases challenging his orders temporarily barring visitors from several predominantly Muslim countries. Judges cited his statements during the campaign as evidence of his motives.

Whether the same could be true in criminal proceedings was unclear, some lawyers said, but they asked why he would take the chance. As it is, some of his tweets in recent weeks have provided fodder for critics who accused him of obstructing justice by firing James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director who was leading the Russia investigation. Moreover, provocative tweets could unwisely anger prosecutors and investigators.

One example cited by lawyers is when Mr. Trump seemed to threaten Mr. Comey if he talked publicly about his encounters with the president. “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. Some lawyers have said that that could be interpreted as witness tampering.

Mr. Comey plans to testify next week on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are certain to ask about reports that Mr. Trump asked him to shut down an investigation into Michael T. Flynn, the president’s former national security adviser.

Mr. Trump sees Twitter as an asset. “Trump at his best is most effective as a politician when he is most unvarnished, able to say things other people aren’t allowed to say — which allows him to shape the whole conversation,” said Tim Miller, communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 campaign and a frequent critic of the president’s.

“I think, a lot of the time, he’s been able to do that as president, but the biggest problem he has is a lack of self-control,” Mr. Miller said. “How do you balance his power with his propensity for self-destructive behavior? Then you add the legal issue — I’m not sure how significant that will be. Lawyers hate it when he tweets.”

Mr. Trump’s aides, especially his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, have long implored the president to cut down on his tweeting, especially about the Russia investigations. But Mr. McGahn is not perceived as a peer by Mr. Trump, unlike Mr. Kasowitz, whom the president respects for building a successful business. White House aides hope that Mr. Kasowitz, who has advised Mr. Trump for years, can get through to the president — and that if Mr. Kasowitz leads a vigorous public defense, the president may not feel the need to do it himself.

Mr. Trump has demonstrated that he can tame his Twitter impulses, at least temporarily. As he traveled through the Middle East and Europe last month, he went nine days without attacking, scorning, complaining or contradicting his own staff.

Instead, his social media presence was conventional and even conciliatory. “Honor of a lifetime to meet His Holiness Pope Francis,” Mr. Trump wrote at one point, offering an electronic olive branch to the pontiff with whom he had feuded during the campaign.

The best way to keep Mr. Trump off Twitter, advisers said, is to keep him busy. During his foreign trip, he was occupied 12 to 15 hours a day, seldom left alone to fulminate over the Russian investigation and given less unstructured time to watch television — although he did tune in to CNN International and fumed privately that it was even more hostile to him than the domestic network.

It helped, aides said, that Melania Trump, a sometimes moderating force who has largely remained in New York since the inauguration, accompanied him on the trip.

But hopes that Mr. Trump had turned a page while abroad quickly dissipated when he returned to the White House over the weekend. At 7:33 a.m. on Sunday, his first morning home, he began venting on Twitter against what he said were unfair news media reports. “It is my opinion that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media,” he wrote.

By Wednesday morning, he was lashing out at Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee and repeating a claim by Carter Page, his former campaign adviser, that Mr. Comey and John O. Brennan, a former C.I.A. director, provided “false or misleading testimony.”

By Wednesday evening, after Mrs. Clinton at a public appearance said she suspected collusion with the Russians and joked that “covfefe” was a secret code to Moscow, Mr. Trump fired back on Twitter: “Crooked Hillary Clinton now blames everybody but herself, refuses to say she was a terrible candidate.” She responded with her own tweet: “People in covfefe houses shouldn’t throw covfefe.”

For Mr. Trump, Twitter remains a way of fighting back. And even as his lawyers plead for restraint, he left little doubt this week about his determination to keep doing that. “The Fake News Media works hard at disparaging & demeaning my use of social media,” he wrote, “because they don’t want America to hear the real story!” 

©2017 The New York Times News Service