‘IT WAS ME’: Trump Ushers in Thanksgiving Angry That ‘Ungrateful Fool’ LaVar Ball Isn’t Thankful for Trump

5:25 AM Tweet From Mar-a-Lago

President Trump began his Thanksgiving holiday waking up at Mar-a-Lago and tweeting at 5:25 AM Wednesday an attack on a U.S. citizen who is not an elected official or a political opponent. The President continued his war on LaVar Ball, angry the father of one of the UCLA players who were arrested in China on shoplifting charges isn’t thankful – for him. Trump attacked Ball, calling him an “ungrateful fool!”

Trump insists he is responsible for China allowing the three players, including Ball’s son, to be released and return home. He claims his relationship with the president of China, Xi Jinping, effected their release.

“IT WAS ME,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning, crediting himself for the players being able to return home.

Trump also keeps claiming the penalty in China for shoplifting is 5-10 years. He’s wrong.

The New York Times notes “experts say the players for the U.C.L.A. team, who were accused of stealing sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store in Hangzhou, China, probably would have been released even if Mr. Trump had not raised the case with President Xi Jinping during a visit this month to Beijing.”

Shoplifting is considered a relatively minor crime in China, and foreigners convicted of minor crimes are often deported rather than given prison sentences.

“It’s nonsense,” Fu Hualing, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, said of Mr. Trump’s assertion that his intervention was solely responsible for the athletes’ release. “I would be surprised if they were even prosecuted.”

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