“I never worked for Russia,” he said. “And you know that answer better than anybody. I never worked for Russia. Not only did I never work for Russia, I think it’s a disgrace that you even asked that question, because it’s a whole big, fat hoax. It’s just a hoax.”

The FBI counterintelligence probe was passed off to Special Counsel Robert Mueller when he was appointed in May 2017. As a matter of law, it’s not clear whether Mueller is still pursuing that line of investigation, much less what new information or conclusions he might have produced. But as a matter of politics, the burden of proof is now on Trump to explain. There may well be some non-nefarious explanation, but it’s the president’s responsibility to clarify his long pattern of strange behavior toward Russia.

Consider the other big Russia-related story of the weekend. The Washington Post revealed that Trump has concealed details of his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin even from other top members of his staff, going so far as to confiscate the notes produced by his interpreter during a meeting and instructing the interpreter not to speak with other officials. As I have reported, interpreters are privy to highly secret conversations, carry security clearance, and are accustomed to keeping secrets. Nonetheless, this sort of secrecy is unusual, the Post notes:

As a result, U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia sought to install through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented campaign of election interference.

Why would Trump do this? Yes, he has a weird tendency to destroy documents (illegally). Yes, he had a vexed relationship with then–Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has since criticized the president’s leadership. But neither of these answers really explains why Trump has been so secretive about his interactions with Putin, and it’s silly for the public (and press) to spend a lot of time speculating when Trump can answer the question.

Until he does, the interpreter episode joins a long list of incidents where Trump was strangely conciliatory or even obsequious toward Moscow. Max Boot laid out a detailed list of questionable interactions in Monday’s Washington Post, but there are a few lowlights worth reviewing.

During the campaign, Trump repeatedly praised Putin and downplayed objections to Russia’s seizure of Crimea. In one extraordinary campaign rally, he called on Russia to hack emails from former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who happened to be his rival for the presidency. (Russian hackers made their first attempt to do so that very day.) He hired Paul Manafort as his campaign manager, despite copious warning signs including his work as a lobbyist for foreign dictators and his offer to work for free. Manafort was one of several aides who in June 2016 met with Russians who the aides believed were bringing damaging info about Clinton. (Trump would later dictate a misleading statement about the meeting.)