ArcaMax

"My hope is that there are people in the White House that advise the president about what's appropriate and what isn't when you're interacting with the FBI," Rubio told reporters. "It's not clear why that didn't happen sooner, and it was a disservice to the president."

Or maybe somebody did try to brief the president but, considering his famously impatient attention span, maybe he decided to follow what he has called his "instinctual" side.

Another Republican senator, South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, carried the ignorance excuse a little further with a sarcastic comment on CBS' Face the Nation Sunday. "He doesn't believe he did anything wrong with the Russians and I tend to believe him," Graham said. "He can't collude with his own government. Why do you think he is colluding with the Russians?"

That's the beauty of the ignorance excuse. Trump's opponents in Washington and the general public already believes he's an airhead who doesn't understand government and doesn't much want to learn.

Some have gone even farther to suggest he suffers from some sort of psychiatric or cognitive impairment. The notion that he stumbled into felonious obstruction of justice because he simply didn't know any better carries weight with multitudes who are predisposed to believe it.

But look again. Trump has a track record of ignoring urgent warnings from others that get in the way of his plans. For example, he hired Mike Flynn despite warnings from President Obama and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Comey's account indicates that Trump continued to go to bat for Flynn even after a scandal forced Flynn to resign.

In other words, Trump's errors appear to be not the random acts of a rattlebrain but deliberate acts to help his friend, despite appearances of impropriety. As easy as it may be for some to believe otherwise, he should have known better.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)

(c) 2017 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.