This defense only succeeds to the extent that it breaks into smaller pieces the larger story of the president’s legal troubles, systematically distorting and misrepresenting each element to make the whole seem less than the sum of its parts. So Trump maintained that former National-Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who pled guilty for lying to the FBI, had to go only because he lied to the vice president, and otherwise was blameless for the dealings with the Russians about which he lied. He dismissed his former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who lied to investigators about his contacts with Russians, as a “low-level volunteer.” His answer to the Cohen plea is that his former lawyer and friend is a liar, not to be trusted. He has depicted Paul Manafort as “brave,” a distinguished member of the Republican consulting community who only landed in the sights of prosecutors because of his late and brief ties to Trump and his refusal to “break” under the threat of jail time.

Eventually, the whole Mueller investigation will reach its conclusion and the story will be restored to clear view. But even now we know what Trump seems unable to comprehend—that he is a key reason why the investigation keeps going. This is not because he is reviled by the establishment for his politics, but because of what the investigation and his response have already revealed about this character: his disregard of legal limits when it is in his personal and political interest to ignore them, and his persistent failure to render an honest accounting of his actions. Although not quite in the way that he imagines, Trump is, in fact, what ties all these pieces together and assures that the inquiry will, as it must, continue.