Sally Yates, who led the Department of Justice during President Trump’s first days in office, is scheduled to testify on Monday afternoon before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Yates’s testimony is expected to contradict what the Trump White House has said about Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, and the extent of his contacts with the Russian government. If President Trump respected the separation of powers, he’d leave Congress alone and let the lawmakers ask Yates whatever questions they want to ask. Instead, just before 8 o’clock this morning, he tweeted this:

General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama Administration - but the Fake News seldom likes talking about that. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017

Less than half an hour later, came this:

It should be “counsel,” not “council,” as Trump apparently realized, making that correction two hours later. But the president’s inability to spell correctly is a quibble compared to his ignorance of Civics 101. One of the main reasons we have congressional committees is to act as a check on the powers of the executive branch. It isn’t the president’s place to interfere with congressional proceedings by using his electronic bully pulpit to propose his own questions and impugn the credibility of witnesses. After all, he has plenty of his own investigative toys to play with. If he thinks that classified information has been leaked, he can call Jeff Sessions, the current attorney general. If he wants the public to know the full story of Michael Flynn, he can order the declassification of Flynn’s personnel records as well as records of Flynn’s reportedly extensive contacts with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador. Instead, Trump has decided to disrespect the independence of a separate branch of government. This isn’t the first time he’s taken such an approach. In March, he tweeted this in the midst of FBI Director Jim Comey’s testimony to the House Intelligence Committee:

The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process. pic.twitter.com/d9HqkxYBt5 — President Trump (@POTUS) March 20, 2017