Trump Spent Mother's Day Rage-Tweeting About Obama, Flynn, and the Russia Investigation

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As the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus closed in on 80,000, President Donald Trump spent Sunday on Twitter, boosting QAnon conspiracy theorists and rage-tweeting about Barack Obama, Michael Flynn, the Russia investigation, and the media.

He also found time to tweet: “HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY.”

While the 126 tweets and retweets posted by the president on Sunday fell slightly short of his daily record — 142 — he did manage to blast out over 50 messages before 8:30 a.m.

Much of Trump’s focus throughout Sunday was not on the pandemic that has caused tens of thousands of deaths and crippled the country’s economy. Instead, he focused on the fallout from the Justice Department's decision last week to drop all charges against Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser.

Trump raged against former President Barack Obama, at one point simply tweeting “OBAMAGATE.”

Trump retweeted right-wing talking head Buck Sexton, who claimed that Obama "used his last weeks in office to target incoming officials and sabotage the new administration,” which Trump called “the biggest political crime in American history, by far.”

Trump’s focus on Obama is likely linked to leaked audio that emerged Friday of Obama criticizing the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and its decision to drop charges against Flynn.

READ: Trump's DOJ is dropping the charges against Michael Flynn — even though he already plead guilty

“The fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk," Obama said on a phone call with supporters, according to a recording leaked to Yahoo News. "And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”

Even though it’s been a year since Special Counsel Robert Mueller filed his report into collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow, the investigation still rankles the president. On Sunday he retweeted multiple conspiracy theories about the origins of the probe that implicated Hilary Clinton in instigating the Russia investigation. The theories also implicate former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — both of whom have written scathing books about Trump.

As well as spending his day raging about Obama, Mueller, and the FBI, Trump found some time to retweet several posts by Lionel Lebron, a YouTube conspiracy theorist who is one of the most ardent supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

He also retweeted a post from his wife Melania celebrating the second anniversary of her Be Best initiative, and promoted one of his golf courses, which he claims will reopen for business soon.

Despite the death toll in the U.S. closing in on 80,000, Trump only briefly mentioned the coronavirus pandemic, and when he did, it was to praise himself — and once again attack Obama.

Trump’s pace of tweets and retweets waned later in the day, but just before he turned in for the night he found some time to criticize the media, and retweet claims from German officials that the WHO was involved in a cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak in China.

Cover: In this May 7, 2020, file photo President Donald Trump listens during a meeting about the coronavirus response in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)