It may be one turn of the conspiracy screw too many, but I think it’s possible that President Trump himself was the leaker of yesterday’s story that he defied his aides’ advice and congratulated Vladimir Putin on his recent and rigged reelection in Russia. Or, at the very least, that he is not really upset about the leak. While this is purely speculative, the logic goes like this: Trump never misses a chance to show his White House and the world that he will not be restrained. As a bonus, Trump set off yet another circular firing squad among his aides, which he seems to enjoy sadistically.
All autocrats have their way of marking their dominance. Putin takes his shirt off; Trump undermines his staff. The band Coldplay probably didn’t have Trump in mind in a recent song, but the band’s lyric fits his whole world: “chaos giving orders.”