On Monday, The Times gave us the first glimpse of 49 questions the special counsel Robert Mueller could ask President Trump, as told to Mr. Trump’s legal team during negotiations for an interview. The questions reveal the topics Mr. Mueller believes could lead to potential liability for the president and help explain why Trump’s team has urged him not to agree to an interview.

Last night, we learned that the specific questions were actually created by a Trump lawyer, Jay Sekulow, his interpretation of 16 specific subjects presented by Mr. Mueller’s team. Mr. Sekulow broke down the subjects and subtopics into the separate questions. This explains why Mr. Trump’s team had these questions — it would be highly unusual for a prosecutor to give a witness questions in advance, but it is fairly common for a prosecutor to preview potential topics for a defense attorney before an interview. For that reason, I think it’s fair to assume that Mr. Sekulow’s questions track what Mr. Mueller’s team wants to cover in an interview.

Mr. Trump’s team plans to use the questions to attack the special counsel as “overreaching” and going “beyond his mandate,” but the questions themselves suggest that Mr. Mueller has carefully stayed within his bounds. They contain nothing about obscure business deals or real estate transactions; the questions focus on coordination with Russia, obstruction of justice and topics that have been covered at length in the news media. None of the topics should have come as a surprise to Mr. Trump’s team, aside from an explosive question about efforts by the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to seek aid from the Kremlin, which is squarely about coordination with Russia.

What should concern Mr. Trump’s team is how the questions zero in on Mr. Trump’s criminal liability. They leave little doubt that Mr. Trump is in serious jeopardy, particularly regarding obstruction of justice. I concluded months ago that Mr. Mueller would likely determine that the president obstructed justice, but the questions show that Mr. Mueller has already thought about how he would prove his case. The queries ask about Mr. Trump’s state of mind when he fired James Comey, when he erupted in anger at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself and when he considered firing the special counsel. The questions are intended to prove the case against Mr. Trump through his own words.