The news of the attorney general’s recusal exploded like an IED in the White House. Sessions was Trump’s protection against an overly aggressive Russian investigation. The president just could not grasp the logic here. He railed to friends: Why would Sessions not want to protect him? What would Sessions gain? Did he think this stuff was real? Sessions needed to do his job! In fact, Trump already had good reason to worry about the DOJ. The president had a private source, one of his frequent callers, who, he believed, was keeping him abreast of what was going on in the Justice Department—and, the president noted, doing a much better job of it than Sessions himself. The Trump administration, as a consequence of the Russia story, was involved in a high-stakes bureaucratic push-pull, with the president going outside government to find out what was happening in his own government. The source, a longtime friend with his own DOJ sources—many of the president’s rich and powerful friends had their own reasons to keep close tabs on what was happening at the Justice Department—fed the president a bleak picture of a Justice Department and an FBI run amok in its efforts to get him. “Treason” was a word that was being used, the president was told. “The DOJ,” the president’s source told him, “was filled with women who hated him.” It was an army of lawyers and investigators taking instructions from the former administration. “They want to make Watergate look like Pissgate,” the president was told. This comparison confused Trump; he thought his friend was making a reference to the Steele dossier and its tale of the golden showers. After the attorney general’s recusal, the president, whose instinctive reaction to every problem was to fire someone, right away, thought he should just get rid of Sessions. At the same time, there was little doubt in his mind about what was happening here. He knew where this Russia stuff was coming from, and if these Obama people thought they were goin