This New York Times report reveals some pretty juicy details about Donald Trump's effort to keep a handle on the Russia probe, including a White House lobbying effort to dissuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions from recusing himself and a search for dirt on former FBI director James Comey. Michael Schmidt writes:
President Trump gave firm instructions in March to the White House’s top lawyer: stop the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, from recusing himself in the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s associates had helped a Russian campaign to disrupt the 2016 election. [...]
[White House counsel Don] McGahn was unsuccessful, and the president erupted in anger in front of numerous White House officials, saying he needed his attorney general to protect him. Mr. Trump said he had expected his top law enforcement official to safeguard him [...]
Among the other episodes, Mr. Trump described the Russia investigation as “fabricated and politically motivated” in a letter that he intended to send to the F.B.I. director at the time, James B. Comey, but that White House aides stopped him from sending. Mr. Mueller has also substantiated claims that Mr. Comey made in a series of memos describing troubling interactions with the president before he was fired in May. [...]
The New York Times has also learned that four days before Mr. Comey was fired, one of Mr. Sessions’s aides asked a congressional staff member whether he had damaging information about Mr. Comey, part of an apparent effort to undermine the F.B.I. director. It was not clear whether Mr. Mueller’s investigators knew about this incident.
Between the collusion and obstruction charges special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating, the article says that legal experts believe there's more publicly available evidence around the obstruction charge.