As you may have heard, an investigation of possible links between Donald Trump's campaign and Russia is currently underway, and the president is not handling it very well. After dismissing the story for months as “fake news” cooked up by Democrats as an excuse for why Hillary Clinton lost the election, on Tuesday night, Trump fired James Comey, the F.B.I. director leading the investigation, which is sort of the exact opposite of what a person who has nothing to hide does. Then, after White House aides and Vice-President Mike Pence put out the line that Trump cut Comey loose on the recommendation of deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and attorney general Jeff Sessions, Trump told NBC News that, actually, he was going to can the guy “regardless,” and his third-person thinking at the time was “this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story,” which doesn’t exactly jibe with the initial claim that the axing had to do with the director’s handling of the Hillary e-mail situation. On Friday, Trump who, as a reminder, is a sitting president, logged on to Twitter and told his 29.2 million followers that “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” (Comey reportedly “hopes there are tapes,” as “that would be perfect.”)

What probably should have happened next is that Donald Trump and everyone related to Donald Trump—by blood or through the White House—should have just stopped talking, taken Friday off, and headed to Bedminster. Shut off their devices, caught up on Veep, etc. Let Congress appoint a special prosecutor and never mention Russia again. Instead, in their infinite collective wisdom, the group decided to have Trump’s lawyers release a two-month old letter attempting to demonstrate that the president has no financial ties to Russia by . . . releasing a letter that cites financial ties to Russia. It reads, in part: