White House shake-ups prove Trump’s putting America first

But what does it mean for Trump to be Trump when it comes to Robert Mueller? My reading of the change in lawyers is that Trump gave up on Dowd’s idea that the way to handle the investigation was to cooperate with every request in the belief that, at some point, Mueller would concede he had nothing and close up shop.

That wasn’t a crazy idea initially and even throughout last year. But at this late date, with Mueller demanding Trump’s family business records and pressing the president to sit for an interview, there is no end in sight.

Trump’s decision to do it his way, meaning counterpunching with personal attacks, is captured in tweets, such as when he wrote: “Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans?”