Trump personalizes everything. Ideas don’t joust. People do. And it’s vanity, not verities, at stake. With the way that Comey has written his book, which charts every last tremor of his conscience, and the staging of his appearances in promotion of it, he has abetted his own transformation from a crucial witness to a character in the serial drama and nonstop spectacle of Trump’s life.

That drama only serves Trump. If he can distract his Republican enablers and American voters with a crossfire of accusations and convince them that what they’re beholding has as much to do with the egos of the actors as with the egregiousness of his acts, he has inoculated himself against the judgment of Robert Mueller, and he shapes the movie that’s made of this.

Its title? “Honey, I Shrunk the F.B.I.”