Daily Beast: “In multiple conference calls and closed-door gatherings at the White House that have taken place since January, the president began mapping out, with both White House and outside counsel, how to handle the coming onslaught of congressional probes and subpoenas aimed at his administration, his family, and his business empire.”

“By February, Trump was actively asking those around him about the ways in which subpoenas from Democratic-controlled House committees could be fiercely challenged, a senior administration official said. By that time, those close to Trump say he had already settled, firmly, on a path forward.”

“President Trump’s opinion—an assessment reinforced by the advice of his lawyers and friends—was that he and his legal war council shouldn’t give an inch to congressional investigators and liberal lawmakers.”

Murray Waas: “Prosecutors working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded last year that they had sufficient evidence to seek criminal charges against President Trump for obstruction of justice over the president’s alleged pressuring of then FBI Director James Comey in February 2017 to shut down an FBI investigation of the president’s then national security adviser, Michael Flynn.”

“Privately, the two prosecutors, who were then employed in the special counsel’s office, told other Justice Department officials that had it not been for the unique nature of the case—the investigation of a sitting president of the United States, and one who tried to use the powers of his office to thwart and even close down the special counsel’s investigation—they would have advocated that he face federal criminal charges.”

“For years, President Trump has insisted it’s impossible to find Americans to fill seasonal jobs at his hotels, resorts, and wineries, leaving him no choice but to hire foreign guest workers instead,” BuzzFeed News reports.

“But government records… reveal for the first time that at least 58 US workers applied for the temporary jobs as cooks, servers, and housekeepers at Mar-a-Lago and other Trump resorts from early 2014 through mid-2018.”

“Only one of them appears to have been hired.”

Charlie Sykes: “Depending on which competing reality you have been frequenting, two narratives have dominated discussions of President Donald Trump’s attempted obstruction of justice. The first (let’s call it the Barr/Fox version) argues that since there was no underlying crime, there was really nothing to obstruct and, plus, he was sincerely angry. The second version (let’s call it the too-incompetent to obstruct version) accepts his malign and impeachable intentions, but focuses on the refusal by his aides and assorted cronies to carry out his obstructive suggestions. In this reality, Trump was largely thwarted by Don McGahn’s integrity and Corey Lewandowski’s general incompetence and cowardice.”

“But now comes Benjamin Wittes, the editor-in-chief of Lawfare, who has been subjecting the Mueller report to a deep dive read (if you are not following his ‘reading diary,’ you really need to start). Wittes offers evidence of a third possible version: Mueller’s report suggests strongly that Trump did, in fact, successfully obstruct the investigation by dangling pardons to potential witness, most notably former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.”