(CNN) On Sunday, President Donald Trump tweeted this: "So President Obama knew about Russia before the Election. Why didn't he do something about it? Why didn't he tell our campaign? Because it is all a big hoax, that's why, and he thought Crooked Hillary was going to win!!!"

The message seemed clear: The entire investigation into Russia's active interference in the 2016 election was a "hoax." Which would be somewhat odd, given that the intelligence community unanimously concluded that Russia not only worked to meddle in the election but did so to help Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton. But, given Trump's repeated refusal to acknowledge that fact -- including while standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin last week in Helsinki, Finland -- it all made a weird sort of sense.

Except, of course, when Trump said, "it is all a big hoax," he wasn't actually talking about the Russia investigation currently being led by special counsel Robert Mueller. At least according to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. "He's referring to the claim that his campaign had anything to do with it," she explained to reporters Monday morning.

Which, um, OK. Maybe in a vacuum that explanation makes sense. Maybe. But the context of Trump's last week suggests a simple pattern: Trump says or tweets what he believes and then his White House staff tries to explain it away even as he kind of, sort of works to undermine their explanations. The result is a President and a White House choking on their own contradictions and falsehoods on an issue -- a rogue nation meddling in our democracy -- that sits at the heart of the American experiment.

Let's go through some of that context.

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