Donald Trump Jr. leaked his own DMs with WikiLeaks

It's not the first time Donald Trump Jr. has tried to mitigate bad news by leaking his own private messages.
 By 
Colin Daileda
 on 
Donald Trump Jr. leaked his own DMs with WikiLeaks
Normal smile of human. Credit: AP/REX/Shutterstock

Donald Trump Jr. seems to have told himself that if he just shouts "NOTHING TO SEE HERE LIBS" every time his name pops up in the news, his legal troubles will vanish.

On Monday, following an article in The Atlantic that described direct messages on Twitter between WikiLeaks and the president's oldest son, Trump Jr. tried to mitigate the news by ... simply leaking those DMs to the world himself, sharing out the messages in a series of tweets.

Junior's idea seems to be that by tweeting these things, he will show they are big bowls of nothing, and the world will move on.

In the tweets, Trump Jr. says he only responded three times to overtures by WikiLeaks. Still, there are curious links between information WikiLeaks sent Trump Jr. and actions taken by members of the Trump campaign. Trump himself tweeted about believing that journalists were ignoring WikiLeaks dumps, notably after WikiLeaks messaged Trump Jr. about stories the press was missing.

Tweeting out his own private correspondences is a strategy Donald Trump Jr.'s employed before. After The New York Times reported on emails Trump Jr. sent and received about a supposed Russian government attorney who allegedly had information damaging to Hillary Clinton's candidacy, the president's oldest son tweeted those emails.

If you're looking for a reason for these self-initiated leaks, aside from Radical Transparency, CNN and The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin has a theory: the man just isn't smart.

Maybe, at this point, all Trump Jr. can do is tweet through it and pray.

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Colin Daileda

Colin is Mashable's US & World Reporter. He previously interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect. Colin is a graduate from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not at Mashable, you can most likely find him eating or playing some kind of sport.

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