Despite his inexplicable habit of wearing two collared shirts simultaneously, Steve Bannon demonstrated a semblance of acuity during Sunday’s revealing interview on 60 Minutes when he dubbed the president’s dismissal of F.B.I. director James Comey a cataclysmic blunder. Proclaiming it the biggest mistake in political history “would probably be too bombastic, even for me,” Bannon said, weighing the scale of the fallout from beneath the encumbrance of three layers of black fabric. “Maybe modern political history.”

It’s a predicament with which the White House is well acquainted. While Donald Trump’s legal team has mostly backed away from publicly attacking James Comey and Robert Mueller, the president reportedly continues to “rant and brood” over the Russia investigation, telling aides that Comey was a “leaker” and that Mueller is leading a “witch hunt.” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was presumably speaking for Trump when she characteristically doubled-down on her boss's decision and political instincts. “The president is proud of the decision that he made,” Sanders said earlier this week. “The president was 100 percent right in firing James Comey. He knew at the time that it could be bad for him politically but he also knew he had an obligation to do what was right and do what was right for the American people and certainly the men and women at the F.B.I.”

Inconveniently, Trump has not done much to suggest that patriotism played a definitive role in his decision. His most notable explanation of his justification skidded rapidly from Comey’s mishandling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail servers to his refusal to drop his investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. “When I decided to do it, I said to myself, I said: ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story,‘” Trump said in an interview with NBC News at the time. “It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.” It did not help Trump’s case when Comey revealed to lawmakers during congressional testimony, earlier this year, that Trump had explicitly pressured him to drop the investigation.

But as Trump and his aides continue to face mounting scrutiny, it makes sense to try to spread the blame. On Tuesday, Sanders suggested that federal prosecutors should consider bringing a case against Comey, whom she said leaked memos to the New York Times and politicized the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server by signaling that he would exonerate her before interviewing her or other key witnesses. “I think there’s no secret Comey, by his own self-admission, leaked privileged government information. Weeks before President Trump fired him, Comey testified that if an F.B.I. agent engaged in the same practice they’d face serious repercussions. I think he set his own stage for himself on the front. His actions were improper and likely could have been illegal.”

Asked if Trump himself would encourage the Justice Department to prosecute Comey, Sanders replied: “That’s not the president’s role; that’s the job of the Department of Justice and something they should certainly look at. I’m not sure about that specifically but I think if there’s ever a moment where we feel someone’s broken the law, particularly if they’re the head of the F.B.I., I think that’s something that certainly should be looked at.”