As suddenly as Donald Trump fired James Comey, his explanation for ousting the F.B.I. director began to fall apart. The first story offered by the White House, that Comey had mishandled the bureau’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server, was immediately dismissed by the media as an obvious pretext. Why axe Comey on a Tuesday evening in May, without any warning or windup, when he was thousands of miles away in California, months after the offending incident? Administration officials suggested that the decision originated with Rod Rosenstein, the newly minted deputy attorney general, but this, too, strained belief.

A rival narrative has since emerged, fueled by a torrent of leaks indicating the source of Trump’s dissatisfaction was, in fact, plainly the F.B.I.’s investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia. Politico reported that Trump was “frustrated by his inability to control the mushrooming narrative around Russia” and “would sometimes scream at television clips about the probe”; CNN reported that Trump was outraged the F.B.I. director wouldn’t provide him with any assurances of loyalty; and The Washington Post said that Trump was “angry” Comey declined to pursue leaks or support his unfounded wiretapping claims. According to multiple, deeply sourced accounts over the past 24 hours, the decision to fire Comey was driven by Trump, and Trump alone. The majority of his staffers were blindsided Tuesday when the news broke.

The Trump administration is now struggling to adapt its story to fit the latest facts. During an impromptu press conference outside the White House on Tuesday night, Press Secretary Sean Spicer pinned Comey’s ouster squarely on Rosenstein. “It was all him,” he said, insisting that the deputy attorney general had audited the F.B.I. director’s performance of his own volition. “That’s correct—I mean, I can’t, I guess I shouldn’t say that, thank you for the help on that one. No one from the White House. That was a D.O.J. decision.”

The following afternoon, as contradictory reports piled up, the story changed again: Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, filling in for Spicer, clarified that Trump had been considering dismissing Comey since the election, but “wanted to give Director Comey a chance.” The president, she added, experienced an “erosion of confidence” over the last several months and highlighted the F.B.I. director’s congressional testimony last week as a “big catalyst” behind the decision. Hours later, the White House consolidated its new set of talking points into an explanation broad enough to encompass multiple conflicting narratives:

The truth, it seems, may be less complicated, and more familiar. “In private,” the Times reported, Trump had been “nursing a collection of festering grievances.” But his “fate was sealed” when Comey testified before Congress about the Russia and Clinton investigations. “Mr. Trump burned as he watched, convinced that Mr. Comey was grandstanding. He was particularly irked when Mr. Comey said he was ‘mildly nauseous’ to think that his handling of the email case had influenced the election, which Mr. Trump took to demean his own role in history.” His response was characteristic: after making the impulsive, emotional decision to fire Comey, Trump demanded that his staff justify it. When Trump summoned Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein to the White House on Monday, The Washington Post reported, “Trump gave [them] a directive: to explain in writing the case against Comey.” (Rosenstein, for his part, was reportedly furious that he was being held up as the primary force behind Comey’s dismissal. According to the Post, the deputy attorney general threatened to resign on Tuesday when it became clear that he had been used.)