When Donald Trump abruptly fired F.B.I. Director James Comey last year, he automatically raised the question of whether he had obstructed justice. He had, after all, ousted the man leading the investigation into whether his presidential campaign colluded with the Russian government. “It was inevitable that Mueller was going to take a look at that,” a white-collar Washington defense lawyer told me last year. Of course, for Robert Mueller to bring an obstruction case against Trump, the lawyer continued, he will have to prove that the president—who has the constitutional authority to fire his subordinates—orchestrated Comey’s ouster with “corrupt intent.” It’s a high bar to clear, as many legal experts have explained. And yet Trump keeps making Mueller’s job easier.

A new pair of reports highlights the depths of the self-inflicted wounds Mueller is investigating. The first, from The New York Times, reveals that in the aftermath of Comey’s stunning dismissal last spring, the ranking No. 2 official at the F.B.I., Andrew McCabe, penned a memo detailing Trump’s thinking at the time. According to that memo, which has since been turned over to Mueller, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told McCabe that while he had ultimately blamed Comey’s dismissal on his handling of the Clinton e-mail investigation, Trump had initially pressured him to include a reference to Russia. Rosenstein did not elaborate on his interaction with the president, but one source briefed on Rosenstein’s conversation with Trump told the Times that the president had wanted him to note that he was not personally under investigation. Rosenstein declined Trump’s request, choosing to focus his memo solely on the e-mail probe. But the ask disturbed McCabe:

To Mr. McCabe, that seemed like possible evidence that Mr. Comey’s firing was actually related to the F.B.I.’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, and that Mr. Rosenstein helped provide a cover story by writing about the Clinton investigation.

McCabe’s memo pokes more holes in the White House’s claim that Comey was fired, at the urging of both Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, because he bungled the e-mail probe. Trump himself has undermined this particular talking point, telling NBC’s Lester Holt that he’d always planned to fire Comey over the “Russia thing.” He’s also quipped to Russian officials that firing “nut job” Comey relieved “great pressure” on his administration. (On Thursday morning, Trump went back on his own word, tweeting, “Not that it matters but I never fired James Comey because of Russia!”) More recently, Rudy Giuliani offered a new explanation entirely when he said, “[Trump] fired Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn’t a target of the investigation.”

The shifting story has doubtless raised red flags for Mueller, who could theoretically use McCabe’s memo to strengthen the argument that Trump fired Comey in an attempt to hinder the probe into his campaign. And unfortunately for the president, his clumsy interactions with top law-enforcement officials aren’t limited to Rosenstein. On Tuesday, the Times reported that Mueller is also investigating a confrontation between the president and Attorney General Sessions last spring, in which Trump “berated Mr. Sessions and told him he should reverse his decision” to recuse himself from the Russia probe—an act Trump reportedly viewed as a betrayal. (Sessions decided to step away from the probe amid intense pressure from Congress, after he was revealed to have made a series of misleading remarks about his interactions with Russians during the 2016 campaign.)