Maggie Haberman

When President Donald Trump entered office, Twitter was a political tool that had helped get him elected and a digital howitzer that he relished firing. In the years since, he has fully integrated Twitter into the very fabric of his administration, reshaping the nature of the presidency and presidential power. Early on, top aides wanted to restrain the president’s Twitter habit, even considering asking the company to impose a 15-minute delay on Trump’s messages.

“Fox News is Trump’s Walter Cronkite,” said Anthony Scaramucci, who served briefly as Mr. Trump’s White House communications director — and has recently become a vocal critic. “Once he loses the majority of them, it’s over. He knows it, which is why he is bashing and intimidating them.”

Federal prosecutors are examining whether foreigners illegally funneled donations to President Trump’s inaugural committee and a pro-Trump super PAC in hopes of buying influence over American policy. The inquiry focuses on whether people from Middle Eastern nations — including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — used straw donors to disguise their donations to the two funds. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the record $107 million it raised from donations. The criminal probe by the Manhattan

President Donald Trump said he intended to nominate William P. Barr, who served as attorney general during the first Bush administration from 1991 to 1993, to return as head of the Justice Department. A graduate of George Washington University’s law school, Barr, 68, got his start in the 1970s working for the CIA and later worked in the Reagan White House before leaving for private practice. In 1989, President George Bush appointed him to lead the Justice Department’s powerful Office of Legal Counsel, and later elevated him to deputy attorney general and then attorney general.

When President Donald Trump calls old friends on one of his iPhones to gossip, gripe, or solicit their latest take on how he is doing, American intelligence reports indicate that Chinese spies are often listening — and putting to use invaluable insights into how to best work the president and affect administration policy, current and former American officials said. Trump’s aides have repeatedly warned him that his cellphone calls are not secure, and they have told him that Russian spies are routinely eavesdropping on the calls, as well.

Rick Gates, a  top Trump campaign official, requested proposals in 2016 from an Israeli company to create fake online identities, to use social media manipulation, and to gather intelligence to help defeat Republican primary race opponents and Hillary Clinton. The Trump campaign’s interest in the work began as Russians were escalating their effort to aid Donald Trump.

Federal investigators have provided ample evidence that President Donald Trump was involved in deals to pay two women to keep them from speaking publicly before the 2016 election about affairs that they said they had with him. But it turns out that Trump wanted to go even further. He and his lawyer at the time, Michael D. Cohen, devised a plan to buy up all the dirt on President Trump that the National Enquirer and its parent company had collected on him, dating back to the 1980s, according to several of Trump’s associates.

President Donald Trump promoted new, unconfirmed accusations to suit his political narrative: that a “criminal deep state” element within Obama’s government planted a spy deep inside his presidential campaign to help his rival, Hillary Clinton, win — a scheme he branded “Spygate.” It was the latest indication that a president who has for decades trafficked in conspiracy theories has brought them from the fringes of public discourse to the Oval Office. Now that he is president, Trump’s baseless stories of secret plots by powerful interests appear to be having a distinct effect.

Apparently, the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has subpoenaed the Trump Organization to turn over documents, including some related to Russia. The order is the first known instance of the special counsel demanding records directly related to President Trump’s businesses, bringing the investigation closer to the president.

With Twitter as his Excalibur, the president takes on his doubters, powered by long spells of cable news and a dozen Diet Cokes. But if President Donald Trump has yet to bend the presidency to his will, he is at least wrestling it to a draw.