From the day he sent Sean Spicer out to harangue journalists over the crowd size at his inauguration, Trump has waged a three-year campaign to wear down any doubts about his right to occupy the Oval Office. He set up — and then quietly abandoned — a panel to investigate his specious claims that only voter fraud kept him from winning the popular vote in 2016. He publicly sowed doubts about Russia’s election-year meddling. For White House visitors, reporters — anyone really — he constantly pulled out the red-saturated map detailing how districts voted in 2016.

The common theme: I deserve to be here. I earned this.

“Obsessed” is how one former White House official described Trump’s mindset about how people will remember him. Trump, the ex-official said, has told people around him that impeachment would leave his presidency “tainted.”

“His image is hugely important to him,” the former official said. “He is going crazy over this because the legacy he is looking for is the greatest president — even more so than Abraham Lincoln or George Washington.”