This is a familiar rhetorical technique called “whataboutism”: Any flaw or critique is parried by pointing to some other individual’s own sins, imagined or real, equal or worse. The technique is a logical fallacy, since one person’s crimes do not excuse anyone else’s. Even if Clinton ought to be investigated, that doesn’t get Trump off the hook.

But Trump’s Clinton whataboutism is perplexing for two big reasons, both of which boil down to the fact that he is president of the United States. First, he evinces no understanding of why his situation as commander in chief is different from that of a defeated candidate. Second, his messaging ignores the fact that as president he is the boss of the attorney general and Justice Department.

Why does Trump get more attention than Clinton? Because he’s president, of course, but also because the allegations against him are new. Every time I write about Trump these days, I receive an email or several demanding to know why I’m not reporting on the uranium case. The answer is that I did: In early 2015, I wrote about the uranium as well as the broader ethical challenges of the Clinton Foundation and the miasma of scandals hovering over Clinton’s candidacy. One reason that the press is paying less attention to these matters is simply that they were already covered in detail, years ago.

Of course it’s also relevant that Clinton is now a private citizen, following her loss to Trump. Trump can’t stop invoking his victory in November 2016, but he also seems unwilling to reckon with the consequences of it. For example: The president of the United States receives much more scrutiny than failed candidates. That doesn’t mean that allegations against people who are not the president should not be investigated (beware double-whataboutism, a rhetorical tactic that should be left to professionals—or, even better, no one), but allegations against the president and his aides are also far more important because Trump is currently the nation’s chief executive and in a position of great power. This seems almost too obvious to state, and yet it is the most fundamental response to Trump’s complaints.

In enumerating the things that he feels ought to be investigated, Trump mentions her deleted emails, the uranium deal, the Russia reset, and her speeches, for which Clinton and her husband Bill received hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the emails were extensively investigated by the FBI, the director of which delivered a report that was stingingly critical of Clinton but also said there was no basis for criminal charges. Some analysts, including Nate Silver, believe that Director James Comey’s October 28 letter briefly reopening the investigation handed the election to Trump. Trump ought to know this, since his administration cited Comey’s overly public handing of the Clinton scandal as a reason for firing him, only for the president to then change his story and say he fired Comey over the Russia investigation. (The changing and badly incomplete stories offered by Trump and his son are another reason there’s so much focus on Russia.)