Will Bob Mueller Separate Fact From Fiction?

The formidable special counsel has time, money and an all-star legal team on his side. But he’s never taken on an investigation like this before.

- David Von Drehle

In Washington, the 'first law of holes' is one of those shopworn maxims that are so familiar, they need not be spoken. It's like what you should do if you want a friend in the capital: 'Get a dog' goes without saying.

But maybe things are different where Donald Trump came from. And maybe that’s why he didn’t know what to do when he found his young presidency in a small hole involving contacts between a few of his underlings and Russian officials.

Now he’s learning the local folklore the hard way. The first law of holes is, if you’re in one, stop digging. Three times, Trump heard assurances from former FBI director James Comey that the Russia investigation wasn’t aimed at him. Instead of putting his shovel down, though, Trump worked it furiously. According to Comey’s sworn testimony, Trump pushed the G-man for a public exoneration, and when Comey demurred, he may have pressed his case with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers. Unsatisfied, he fired Comey in ham-fisted fashion, then reportedly boasted to Russian visitors that he did it to take pressure off the investigation. Now he’s in the hounded condition of various predecessors: struggling to regain control of the agenda, lashing out at aides, shouting at television sets and peppering his dig-the-hole-deeper tweets with all-caps exasperation.