All the aides who defied Trump have long since departed. Gone, too, are some of the guardrails they erected to keep Trump out of trouble. In their absence, Trump has installed more pliant senior advisers, meaning the nation could see more of the ill-considered and ultimately self-sabotaging behavior that Mueller chronicled in his nearly two-year investigation.

Yoni Appelbaum: The Mueller report is an impeachment referral

Mueller wasn’t about to charge Trump with a crime, it turns out. But what’s clear from the report is that had White House aides not thwarted Trump, the picture would look worse, and impeachment might seem a more viable path.

It’s doubtful he sees it that way. Not one for introspection, Trump values loyalty and appreciates flattery. Unwelcome truths are harder for him to absorb.

One of the odder stories of Trump’s presidency is how his impression of Jeff Sessions darkened. Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump in the 2016 campaign, and supplied some of the aides who gave heft to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. Trump rewarded Sessions by naming him attorney general. But he turned on Sessions—humiliating him with a string of Twitter posts—once the attorney general relinquished command of the Russia investigation and delegated the role to Rosenstein.

Trump was furious about the appointment of a special counsel in May 2017. Told about it by Sessions, Trump said, “This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked,” the report shows.

Read: The Democrats’ plan to summon Robert Mueller

Trump blamed Sessions for recusing himself from the investigation because of a conflict of interest arising from his work on Trump’s campaign.

Trump later called Sessions at home and asked him to “unrecuse” himself. He wanted Sessions back in charge so that he could investigate the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, and also resume control of the Russia investigation.

Sessions did not respond, the report shows, but neither did he comply and reverse his recusal.

In an Oval Office meeting in December 2017, Trump again pressed Sessions to reverse himself. “You’d be a hero,” Trump said.

Sessions never relented; he stayed out of the Russia probe to the end. Evaluating Trump’s actions, Mueller wrote in the report that “a reasonable inference … is that the President believed that an unrecused Attorney General would play a protective role and could shield the President from the ongoing Russia investigation.”

Unhappy about Sessions, Trump at one point asked a top aide, Robert Porter, to approach Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand and ask her whether she might take over the Justice Department and head the Russia investigation. Porter didn’t go along; he said he was “uncomfortable with the task,” the report shows. Porter believed Trump was looking to install someone at the department who would fire Mueller or end the Russia probe—the same actions Sessions wouldn’t take. Not wanting to be part of such a “chain of events,” Porter never spoke to Brand. And so whatever Trump had in mind for her never came to pass.