I’ve seen a few Republicans trying to claim that Trump made his Flynn comments to Comey as a joke or exaggeration or friendly banter. But if that’s the case…why did he tell Pence and Sessions to leave the room first?
It’s a variation on the “he’s too much of an idiot to have really known the full import of what he was doing” defense. And it’s proven shockingly effective in the past. I expect it to be used a lot more as things come out.
It basically boils down to intent. Firing Comey was obstruction… depending on intent. And so on. The argument is that idiots have no intent in anything they do, so if they seem to commit a crime where intent is relevant, then they’re simply not guilty by reason of being an idiot.