Trump had soured on Comey. As all those leaking administration officials tell it, Trump saw the FBI director as too focused on the actual Russia investigation and not nearly focused enough on who had leaked embarrassing information about Trump. Plus, Comey had waved off Trump’s wild-hair claims that President Obama had wire-tapped him. This level of disrespect was intolerable. Trump lost faith in both Comey’s judgment and his loyalty. And so the FBI chief had to go, political and legal considerations be damned.

Viewed through this lens, of course Trump expected even Democrats to more or less accept Comey’s firing. After all, many Dems regard Comey as having cost their team the White House with his October 28 letter to Congress regarding the Hillary email probe. As the president has been defensively tweeting this week, Chuck Schumer is far from the only Democrat to have taken multiple slaps at Comey for his little October surprise.

To a president for whom personal pique is so central, it was natural to assume that Democrats’ burning resentment of Comey would translate into smug delight at his firing—especially with Team Trump asserting that said firing stemmed from Comey’s mistreatment of Hillary.