Wiretap: Trump acknowledges he is under investigation in Russia probe

President Donald Trump acknowledged in an early-morning tweet Friday that he is under investigation as part of the inquiry in Russian influence in the election. The president continues to argue that he is a victim of a witch hunt, complaining via Twitter that he was “being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director!” Via The New York Times. Meanwhile, Mike Pence hires a lawyer. Via The Washington Post.

It’s early in the game to be taking off on the special counsel — before, you know, anything has even happened — but Bob Mueller, who managed to stay above the partisan fray in his years as FBI director, is now in the middle of the partisan wars. Via The New York Times.

Could it be that the office memo, what Yoni Appelbaum calls the humblest of literary genres, brings down a president who doesn’t know how to deal with the bureaucracy he is supposed to lead? Appelbaum argues in The Atlantic that he would send this memo to Trump: “You’re losing this game because you don’t understand the rules.”

It’s all there in the numbers. We are, of course, divided by party, but not simply divided. According to a variety of measures, partisan antipathy is the greatest it has been in decades. Via The New York Times.

E.J. Dionne: As we’re distracted by the Trump/Russia investigation, Mitch McConnell and his GOP team are gutting health care reform in secret. It’s not just hypocrisy that’s driving them. It’s hypocrisy while trying to protect their own (see: Gardner, Cory). Via The Washington Post.

Sarah Kliff, who may be the best writer on health care reform, writes in Vox that she has covered Obamacare since the first day but she has never seen the lying and obstruction that she sees now.

In maybe the biggest upset of the week, Trump’s nominee for the office that vets regulations speaks in praise of those who serve in the deep state. Via Bloomberg View.

Peggy Noonan: Too many media figures are breaking under the pressure from Trump to act like, well, Trump. Via The Wall Street Journal.

If you’re looking for a pattern among mass shooters, you can start with domestic abuse. And in that case, James Hodgkinson definitely fits the profile. Via The New Yorker.

In the view of The National Review, the GOP baseball shooting shows that the left is embracing political violence. That’s how Kevin Williamson sees it anyway. Meanwhile Ed Kilgore wonders in New York magazine just how far the right will go in blaming the left for the shootings.

Photo by ronsrandomstuff, via Flickr: Creative Commons