(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

Investigate the investigators, Trump says

• President Trump has intensified his frequent threats to intervene in the special counsel inquiry, demanding that the Justice Department look into whether the department or the F.B.I. had “infiltrated or surveilled” his campaign.

The president has said that an F.B.I. informant who was sent to talk to his campaign aides was actually a spy dispatched for political purposes. In fact, the F.B.I. sent the informant only after receiving evidence that the advisers had suspicious contacts linked to Russia.

Legal experts said Mr. Trump’s call for an investigation had little precedent and could force a clash with the Justice Department reminiscent of the one involving Richard Nixon during Watergate.



• Also on Sunday, Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudolph Giuliani said the special counsel, Robert Mueller, hoped to finish by Sept. 1 the investigation into whether the president obstructed the Russia inquiry. A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.