Thought to begin the week: contra Jeff Flake, the Republican Party has been “the party of Donald Trump and Roy Moore” for at least two decades, it’s just been waiting for Donald Trump and Roy Moore to come along.

Over the weekend, the president* worked the sports beat. He got in a Twitter wrangle with LaVar Ball, America’s most insufferable sports parent, whose son was jailed for shoplifting in China only to be freed after a short period of incarceration in a luxury hotel. On Monday, the president* found his phone again and ripped Oakland Raiders running back Marshawn Lynch for Lynch’s behavior during the two national anthems played before an NFL game in Mexico City. While he’s no Red Ruffansore, the veteran sports columnist for the National Lampoon—“Water, which never has impressed the ol’ Redhead as a drink, fails to impress as a playing surface, either.”—the president* seems to be vigorously polishing whatever shiny objects are at hand. He’s hearing footsteps again, and ABC News may know why.

In particular, Mueller's investigators are keen to obtain emails related to the firing of FBI Director James Comey and the earlier decision of Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from the entire matter, according to a source who has not seen the specific request but was told about it. Issued within the past month, the directive marks the special counsel's first records request to the Justice Department, and it means Mueller is now demanding documents from the department overseeing his investigation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein played key roles in Comey's removal. And Sessions has since faced withering criticism from Trump over his recusal and Rosenstein's subsequent appointment of Mueller.

Hey, JeffBo. Got a second?

Getty Images

This is a new level of peril for the administration* in a couple of ways. First, in this case, there’s no way for them to argue that Mueller’s investigation is exceeding its mandate. Mueller has this job in the first place because the Congress was unsatisfied with the administration’s incoherent explanation for why Comey was fired. Second, if the relationship between Sessions and the president* is sufficiently poisoned, if only in the dark precincts of the presidential* mind, then Sessions might well wonder where his own self-interest lies—with the president who gets his mad on over the ingratitude of teenage shoplifters and their parents, or with the implacable investigator who can haul him into court every half-hour for the foreseeable future.

There’s no question that Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from any involvement into any investigation into the Russian ratfcking of the 2016 election got up the president*’s nose and lodged there. Now, Mueller seems to have ramped up that portion of his investigation. If I were the president*, I might decide this is a good time to repair my relationship with my attorney general.

Of course, by all accounts, and in this as in any other matter, the president* is interested in hearing only that which he wants to hear. The Washington Post reported on a remarkable bit of business going on between the president* and Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer. The White House staff, it seems, is seeing subpoenas under every table lamp. Meanwhile, Cobb is blowing so much sunshine up the presidential* hindquarters that the president* could stand himself on the White House lawn rather than the Christmas tree this year.

The president himself, however, has warmed to Cobb’s optimistic message on Mueller’s probe. Cobb had initially said he hoped the focus on the White House would conclude by Thanksgiving, but adjusted the timeline slightly in an interview last week, saying he remains optimistic that it will wrap up by the end of the year, if not shortly thereafter.

Ty Cobb, Millerite-at-law.

Trump’s lawyers have also repeatedly said the president himself is not personally under investigation. “I’ve done my best, without overstepping, to share my view that the perception of the inquiry — that it involved a decade or more of financial transactions and other alleged issues that were mistakenly reported — just wasn’t true, and that the issues were narrower and wholly consistent with the mandate provided by the Justice Department to the Office of the Special Counsel,” Cobb said.

OK, then. Let’s move along then and talk about Marshawn Lynch some more.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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