Donald Trump was given an opportunity Tuesday to declare that the buck stopped with him -- that House Republicans' behind-closed-doors move to kneecap an independent ethics office ran afoul of his long-stated goal of "draining the swamp."

Instead, he issued a thoroughly Trumpian statement about it. In a pair of tweets, Trump allowed himself to be all things to both sides of the argument and took nary a stand on much of anything.

Here are the tweets:

This statement is a neat little trick. It allows Trump to at once: (a) Claim that he was critical of the decision to rein in the independent Office of Congressional Ethics, and (b) Sympathize with the members who view themselves as having legitimate beefs with the office by allowing that it might be "unfair."

Some media outlets will cover it as Trump repudiating the move by House Republicans, but that's not really what he's saying. In fact, Trump isn't really saying much of anything here. He's not saying what House Republicans did was wrong; he's saying it was mis-prioritized. And he's not endorsing its actions either, but he's allowing that the office might have been unfair. It's choose your own adventure.

And now, if House Republicans reverse course, he can claim credit for making it happen. But if they don't, he's agreed with them that the office is unfair and they're not technically running afoul of him. Win-win.

This is vintage Trump. His campaign was chock full of efforts to be all things to all people -- to propose one thing one day, soften it later on, and then leave it completely open to interpretation as to where he stood.

He would endorse a ban on Muslim immigration or a registry for Muslims, temper that position, and then insist that we all know where he stands (even though we didn't). Republicans who wanted to believe he wanted to ban Muslim immigrants were free to believe that, while those hoping he would eventually moderate could read that into his comments. Trump played to who you wanted him to be.

Another example: Trump's announcement that he would separate himself from his business as president. A media hungry for details about Trump's business setup in some cases covered this as Trump acquiescing the concerns about his potential conflicts of interest. But as I noted then, Trump didn't actually shed much light on what he planned to do, and his tweets left him plenty of wiggle room.

Trump also clearly noted that he was "not mandated" to do the things he was about to do. That's technically true, but avoiding ethical problems isn't always a legal issue. Nonetheless, Trump puts that out there as clear cover as he disappoints ethics watchdogs by putting his kids in charge of his business and so far does little to separate himself from foreign interests that could come into play during his presidency. Trump's announcement suggested he might go further than he previously was reported to, but it made precisely zero concrete promises. And there's still no effort he's going to go further.

Being all things to all people, of course, is a skill that good politicians look to cultivate. After all, in order to get elected, you want to alienate as few people as possible. So it's best to give everyone some hope that you sympathize with them and will do what they want.

But Trump takes this brand of obfuscation to new heights, and unlike most politicians, he's perfectly willing to ignore the press and leave his actual issue positions in a state of limbo for weeks or months at a time.

As with all politicians, it's worth reading the fine print with Trump and parsing every word of statements like this. Oftentimes, he's saying far more with his choice of words -- and the words he omits -- than you might realize upon first viewing. This is a great example of Trump playing both sides.