For Trump’s aides, celebratory dinners and a hunger for revenge

Along with wisecracks, there was a decidedly less playful theme emerging that once the party is over, the president’s perceived enemies should pay.

Mr. Hill said he shared the president’s grievances, including the suggestion that anyone involved in the Russia investigation’s origins had engaged in treasonous behavior.

“I would love for those responsible to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Mr. Hill said. “I’d like to see some sort of investigation.”

That mood is shared within the administration. Ms. Sanders is using her Twitter platform as press secretary to single out Mr. Trump’s “haters,” using a March Madness-style bracket to identify perceived enemies of the administration, most of them journalists, by name.