On the surface, Easter weekend at Mar-a-Lago was an alternate reality, one in which Donald Trump had triumphed and finally put Robert Mueller’s investigation in the past. “He got cheers and standing ovations when he walked into places. They made him feel like he won,” one guest said. But there were seams in the performance. “Trump knew he was being watched,” a Republican close to the White House said. Backstage, Trump realizes the damage the report has done, and has taken a much darker view of the post-Mueller landscape.

With Democrats weighing impeachment and his approval rating dropping to its lowest levels of the year, the risks are very real. In response, Trump is lashing out at former West Wing officials whom he blames for providing the lion’s share of damaging information in Mueller’s 448-page report. The former officials Trump has vented about, sources told me, are a group known as “the notetakers” that includes former White House counsel Don McGahn, McGahn’s deputy Annie Donaldson, and staff secretary Rob Porter. “The thing that pisses him off is the note-taking,” a former West Wing official interviewed by Mueller told me. “Trump thinks they could have cooperated with Mueller without all the note-taking.”

Of all Trump’s former staff members, McGahn is receiving the brunt of Trump’s post-Mueller rage. McGahn reportedly spoke to prosecutors for 30 hours during at least three voluntary interviews. He was cited 157 times in the report—more than any witness—and provided vivid examples of Trump’s efforts to obstruct justice, while presenting himself as an ethical actor, a circumstance that’s always been galling for the president. “Trump’s furious with Don,” a source close to the White House, said. According to the source, Trump wants his lawyer Rudy Giuliani to file a personal lawsuit against McGahn for making defamatory statements in the Mueller report. (“Trump never asked me to sue anyone,” Giuliani told me).

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Though it’s difficult to see on what legal basis Trump could sue, he’s already waging war on McGahn in the court of public opinion. Giuliani said McGahn told Mueller’s prosecutors essentially three different versions of the events surrounding Trump’s efforts to fire Mueller. “I’d love to see Don’s notes. I believe Don was confused and I’ve told him that,” Giuliani said. (The White House, and McGahn’s attorney William Burck, did not respond to requests for comment.)