‘Hallelujah’: White House ‘Legitimately Surprised’ Trump Stayed Off Twitter During Comey Testimony

Going into yesterday’s much-anticipated testimony of former FBI Director James Comey, there had been reports that President Donald Trump was considering spending that time live-tweeting the Senate hearing. Obviously, the very thought of this was likely causing a number of Trump aides heartburn and searching for the Maalox.

However, with Comey calling the president a liar on multiple occasions, alleging that Trump wanted him to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn, and saying that POTUS was looking for a quid pro quo, something amazing happened — Trump maintained radio silence. Not only did he refrain from tweeting the entire day, he didn’t bring up the hearing during a Washington speech and brushed off shouted questions from reporters.

Well, according to White House officials who spoke to The Daily Beast, they “breathed a collective sigh of relief” when after Comey finished up his testimony and there were no errant tweets from POTUS to publicly clean up. Instead, the president relied on others to comment for him, whether it was his son, his personal lawyer or the White House’s deputy press secretary.

“I just hope the lesson sinks in,” one aide told the Beast. “You have your attack dogs. Let them do their thing. Not everything has to be live-tweeted.”

Other staffers expressed how shocked they were that Trump stayed on script:

“Legitimately surprised. Impressed. Great. Hallelujah,” one senior aide remarked, reviewing Trump’s modicum of self-control. Another White House official simply messaged The Daily Beast a celebrating raising-hands emoji on Thursday afternoon to denote their relief.

[…]

“I feel like I can finally exhale. The stakes here were massive, and it went about as well as it could’ve,” the senior administration official told The Daily Beast. “The president and his team did a great job keeping their eye on the ball today, going about their business, and not getting distracted by the shiny object on the Hill.”

However, as one pointed out, while it was cause for celebration that the president stayed composed yesterday, one should still be a bit cautious that this can continue:

“He did it,” the senior Trump aide said. “Now let’s see what happens in a few hours when he’s bored and alone and the TV is on.”

Meanwhile, this morning, Trump returned to Twitter, calling Comey a liar and a “leaker” while also praising Fox and Friends for airing a segment that bashed the ex-FBI chief’s testimony.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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