The series of exchanges—which were made known to Mueller and to the Times—mark an unprecedented breakdown in the relationship between the president and the White House counsel. “That [Trump] uses an intermediary to convey a request to the White House Counsel and to suggest that if the request isn’t satisfied the counsel will be fired, indicates something about how Mr. Trump is managing his relationship with his lawyer that is profoundly disturbing and dysfunctional,” Robert Bauer, who served as general counsel to President Obama, told me.

More profound, however, is what the exchanges reveal about Trump’s corrupting influence on the institution of the presidency. The White House counsel has always walked a fine line in prioritizing the protection of the Oval Office over the person that occupies it. “White House counsels are not the president’s personal lawyer. They represent the president as president and so in that sense, [McGahn’s] obligation is to the institution,” Bauer explained. “It is not easy always for the counsel to distinguish advice to that particular president from legal support for the institution as a whole because there is in office at any given time a specific individual who has a program and appropriately expects staff—including legal counsel—to help him implement that program.” This dynamic is not unique to the Trump administration. Bernie Nussbaum, who served as Bill Clinton’s first general counsel, came under fire for what his critics decried as putting the president’s personal legal needs ahead of the office of the presidency as the Clinton White House grappled with the Whitewater scandal. Ultimately, such critiques reportedly factored into Nussbaum’s decision to resign before the end of Clinton’s first year in office. “How the White House Counsel strikes the balance between attention to the president’s interests and to the enduring interests of the institution is one of the central and most difficult tasks he or she has,” Bauer told me.

Under Trump, however, that tension is reaching a breaking point. Last March, Trump raged against Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from Mueller’s probe, telling a group of White House officials that his attorney general should have protected him the way he believes Eric Holder did for Obama and John F. Kennedy’s brother did for him. He has repeatedly threatened the independence of the Department of Justice, firing Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and F.B.I. director James Comey; railing against Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein; and pressuring the F.B.I. to investigate his political enemies. And, as the Stormy Daniels saga illustrates, Trump clearly expects his attorneys to do everything within their power to safeguard him. Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid $130,000 out of pocket to silence Daniels from going public with allegations of an affair, and last month filed an arbitration proceeding to keep a non-disclosure agreement in place. A White House spokesperson said that Trump was unaware of the payment—an incredible ethical breach by Cohen on behalf of his client, if true.

Trump’s demands for McGahn’s loyalty may ultimately force the White House counsel to resign, legal experts say. “If you have a president who has difficulty distinguishing his personal wishes from the institutional requirements—in other words, to Donald Trump, the presidency is all about him . . . that puts additional pressure on the White House counsel to draw the distinction,” Bauer told me. Drawing that distinction may become impossible, however, if Trump’s behavior forces McGahn to become legally entangled with the Russia inquiry, himself. “It is true that White House counsel technically represents the office of the president but his boss is the president,” said another D.C. white collar defense attorney, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “At least since [Richard] Nixon, presidents have hired their own lawyers to counsel them in criminal probes. President Trump seems to have blurred those lines if the stories are accurate . . . Trump’s attempt to have McGahn issue statements puts him in an untenable position since he is already a witness.”