attempt to get McGahn to lie about the story: "After the story broke, the president, through his personal counsel and two aides, sought to have McGahn deny that he had been directed to remove the special counsel," though McGahn refused again.)

The words "in fact" in Barr's statement above are bending reality to the breaking point. The only reason Trump's efforts to obstruct the investigation did not work is because his subordinates refused to carry out his instructions. As Mueller writes, "The president's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests."

At any rate, Trump eventually stopped asking McGahn to get rid of Mueller. But a couple days later,Trump cooked up different scheme to protect himself: "[T]he president met one-on-one with Corey Lewandowski in the Oval Office and dictated a message to be delivered to Attorney General Sessions that would have had the effect of limiting the Russia investigation to future election interference only," writes Mueller. When Sessions wouldn't take back his recusal, Trump then started publicly attacking him, and tried to get him to resign again.

Later still, Trump restarted his efforts to get Sessions to stop the investigation once again — and turn it on his electoral opponent instead: "From summer 2017 through 2018, the president attempted to have Attorney General Sessions reverse his recusal, take control of the special counsel's investigation, and order an investigation of Hillary Clinton."

Elsewhere, Trump engaged in what looks like