WASHINGTON—Democratic and Republican leaders called Monday for a bipartisan investigation into Russia’s meddling in the presidential election in the wake of the sensational revelation this weekend that the Central Intelligence Agency believes the country’s hackers intervened in the campaign with the express purpose of getting Donald Trump elected.

The news has also revived a desperate dream of forlorn liberals: an uprising against Trump by the members of the Electoral College.

It’s not happening. Next Monday, barring some world-historical shock, the electors will officially choose Trump as America’s 45th leader.

What kind of leader? Still not exactly clear. Four weeks into his transition, Trump’s policy agenda remains opaque. But the eventful month since his victory has taught us at least some useful things about his plans, his style and his flaws. Here are 12:

He remains infuriated by dissent: To the extent there is a philosophy governing Trump’s behaviour, it is this quote from one of his pre-campaign speeches: “If somebody hits you, you’ve got to hit ‘em back five times harder than they ever thought possible. You’ve got to get even.” As president-elect, he has lashed out at an Indiana union leader who dared criticize him, Saturday Night Live for mocking him, and Boeing for the cost of Air Force One replacement planes — right after the release of an article in which its chief executive expressed concern about his trade rhetoric. He has also turned former critic Mitt Romney into a feeble supplicant, interviewing him for secretary of state in a transparent humiliation effort.

This is a full-fledged Republican administration: For all Trump’s ideological unorthodoxy, the former Democrat has assembled a cabinet that could have been chosen by a regular right-wing Republican. Among his picks: an oil-friendly environmental chief, an anti-Obamacare health chief, an anti-illegal-immigration attorney general.

That said, he is malleable: Trump pledged all campaign to bring back waterboarding, a torture tactic. Then his secretary of defence pick, retired general James Mattis, told him that waterboarding is ineffective, and he enthusiastically recounted the conversation to the New York Times. On most policy matters, he remains susceptible to the views of the last person to speak to him.

He has a brilliant feel for the show: The reality TV star is blessed with an intuitive grasp of the little stuff that makes good political theatre. His team’s deal to keep hundreds of Carrier Corp. jobs from moving to Mexico does nothing to fix the broader economy, but it has lots of people feeling like he cares.

He isn’t even pretending to keep some promises: You may be old enough to remember the debate in which Trump promised to appoint a special prosecutor to probe the misdeeds of Hillary Clinton. When the crowd at his post-election rally in Michigan on Friday chanted “lock her up,” Trump responded, “That plays great before the election; now we don’t care, right?”

He isn’t even pretending to study up: Thing Trump has made time to do: watch SNL. Thing Trump has not made time to do: receive his daily intelligence briefing. Vice-president-elect Mike Pence is accepting his briefing six days a week, Trump only once a week, Reuters reported. Trump’s explanation: “I’m, like, a smart person.”

There is discontinuity afoot: For better or worse, Trump is already upending American foreign policy — and it is not clear how much is strategic and how much is reckless indifference to strategy. He spoke to the president of Taiwan, worrying China. He allegedly endorsed the brutal drug war of the Philippines’ president, worrying rights advocates. All of his phone calls, U.S. reports suggest, have been made without input from the State Department.

He hasn’t stopped lying: The president-elect is still making stuff up, the brazenness of his serial lying undiminished by the weight of his new office. When the Washington Post broke the news about the CIA, Trump’s response included the claim that he won “one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history.” He actually ranks 46th out of 58.

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This is no working-man’s administration: Trump made Goldman Sachs a campaign arch-villains, a metonym for the sinister elite running the “swamp” he was going to “drain” on behalf of regular folks. He has now chosen Goldman people for treasury secretary and for National Economic Council chief. All together, he is putting together the wealthiest administration in modern U.S. history. Not exactly a promise broken — he said he would bring in savvier rich people, not poorer people — but perhaps not what some of his supporters had in mind.

Who knew, he loves generals: Trump asserted during the campaign that he knows more about Daesh than the generals do. Turns out he’s a big generals fan. In picking former military men for defence secretary (Mattis), homeland security secretary (John Kelly) and national security adviser (Michael Flynn), he has the most military-heavy administration since the Second World War.

His fondness for Russia is unabated: Even at a time when it might help Trump to distance himself from Russia, he has continued to serve as Vladimir Putin’s defender — both insisting that some other country might have been behind the hack and lavishing praise upon a secretary of state candidate, ExxonMobil chief Rex Tillerson, who is seen by even some Republicans as uncomfortably close to the Kremlin.

Unresolved conflicts abound: Trump has pledged to hold a news conference to explain how he will be “leaving” his business. (He postponed it on Monday from this week to next month.) But he does not appear to be contemplating selling his stake or creating a blind trust, and the transition has proven over and over how his affiliation with the company and his children’s involvement in his government business combine to create an international web of conflicts.