On Thursday alone, President Trump dispatched over a half-dozen tweets attacking various aspects of the Russia investigation in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s first public statement the previous day. If it feels like President Trump’s Twitter finger has been itchier than usual of late, that’s because it has been. Having dispatched more than 42,000 tweets in the past decade, Mr. Trump has consistently been a prolific user of the social media site, but never so much as in recent months.

In his first six months in office, Mr. Trump averaged nearly six tweets a day, a lot of activity for a guy just starting into the most important job in the world. But that rate has escalated sharply since then. In the most recent half year, he averaged nearly 13 tweets and retweets a day. And in May, he has hit new highs — 671 tweets and retweets so far this month, for an average of more than 22 each day .