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The Trump White House is blaming Democrats for the fact that Jeff Sessions lied about having contact with Russia during the presidential campaign.

Jim Acosta of CNN reported that the Trump administration is blaming Democrats for the Jeff Sessions story:

WH blames Sessions story on Democrats trying to damage POTUS after speech to Congress. pic.twitter.com/pZ5VcMIeEJ — Jim Acosta (@Acosta) March 2, 2017

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The obvious problem with the Trump White House’s attempt to blame Democrats is that the stories that were published in The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal were all well researched and predated Trump’s speech to Congress. The second allegation that the Trump White House made was the standard claim that the story is fake news. The bellowing of fake news is the go-to response from the White House towards any story that is negative about them.

The White House’s claim that Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) is pushing the story was bizarre because Franken never asked Sessions if he had any contact with Russia. Franken’s question to Sessions during the confirmation hearing was what would Sessions do if evidence of contact was brought to him. It was Jeff Sessions who volunteered that he had no contact with Russia.

Blaming the Democrats is not going to get Trump out of this mess. Instead of coming clean and offering up facts, the Trump White House chose to appeal to their base of support within the Republican Party.

Democrats didn’t force Jeff Sessions to lie. Sessions lied on his own.

Nobody but Trump’s most loyal supporters are going to buy the White House’s howling at the partisan moon.

Blaming Democrats for the Attorney General’s lies is a bad political strategy that is a sign of an increasingly desperate administration.