“Boy, I sure am glad that I wrote an email to myself to note that things should be done by the book. If I hadn’t reminded myself, and if the President hadn’t made that conscious decision, we might have NOT done it by the book. Doing things by the book isn’t the default method, so the President specifically asking for it to be done this way, and my memorialising it in an email to myself as opposed to a memo in a file, isn’t at all odd.”

I cannot imagine how the media would react to a Trump staffer writing such an email to themselves about something they even slightly perceive as shady. They would flip their shit.

“In a meeting President Trump stressed that all discussions and negotiations with Ukraine and the Biden matter should be done ‘by the book’. Please ignore that I’m writing this email to myself on the date of inauguration of my opponent, and this meeting happened two weeks ago.”

Even if Rice regularly emailed herself like this in order to note things, it’s still sketchy af.