The New York Times has an eye-popping story today about Trump’s growing disaffection with Jeff Sessions, of all people (and Sean Spicer wouldn’t say that Trump has confidence in the attorney general today). Sessions, of course, was an early-endorser of Trump and is a more reliable advocate of Trumpism than Trump himself. His alleged offense is recusing himself, when it was hard to see anyone else in his position withstanding the pressure for long to remove himself from the Russia investigation, and working to save the Trump “travel ban” from the activist courts. As the Times story acknowledges at the end, Trump’s grousing about Sessions is probably only grousing, since dismissing him would pointlessly add to the administration’s troubles. But the possibility gets to the downside risk to Trump of the Russian investigation that I discussed in this column — even if there is no smoking gun, the constant political and media pressure may goad Trump into lashing out in more self-destructive ways that create a downward political spiral.