President Donald Trump has been urged to stop tweeting about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump’s top advisers and several Russians, a source familiar with discussions tells CNN.
The President was advised that his tweeting only gives oxygen to the topic, even if those around Trump do not believe there is any truly new development.
On Sunday, Trump tweeted an apparent response to stories by CNN and The Washington Post that said he is worried about Donald Trump Jr.’s legal exposure following the infamous 2016 meeting.
Calling the reported concerns a “complete fabrication,” the President acknowledged that the meeting was accepted on the premise that Trump Jr. would get dirt on Hillary Clinton.
“This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!” the President tweeted.
This is hardly the first time the President has reacted to a news story on Twitter and, as a result, helped give that story more attention.
There appears to be less concern among associates about other recent Trump tweets in which he’s gone after special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which, along with his legal team, he’s long sought to discredit. The New York Times reported last month that Mueller has been reviewing Trump’s tweets as part of his probe into whether the President obstructed justice.
However, a tweet Trump sent last week in which he appeared to ask Attorney General Jeff Sessions to stop the Mueller investigation was quickly downplayed by Trump’s lawyers as the President’s opinion, not an order.