The Russia Thing: As President Trump declares that he’s already been cleared in the Russia investigation, he and his lawyers are expected to decide within the next couple of weeks whether he will sit for an interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Mueller’s office has said that if Trump talks, the Special Counsel would take another 90 days to wrap up a report about whether the President attempted to obstruct justice. That would be a potential political bombshell coming on the cusp of mid-term elections.

At the same time, the President and his lawyers are attempting to undermine the legitimacy of the investigation and preparing for legal war if it produces unfavorable results for Trump. “We want to see if we can have the investigation and special counsel declared illegal and unauthorized,” Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said in an interview Friday.

The Princeling: The path to the meeting between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un began with a request to meet with the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, The NY Times reports. The request came through an American financier with North Korean contacts, the paper reports.

The Times says that the North Koreans thought Kushner would not be subject to the general turmoil in the Trump administration. “In reaching out to Mr. Kushner,” the paper says, “the North Koreans were following the example of the Chinese, who had early on identified the 37-year-old husband of Ivanka Trump as a well-connected ‘princeling,’ someone who could be a conduit to Mr. Trump and allow them to bypass the bureaucracy of the State Department.”

Peter Principle: White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, who’s also the acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has named one of his budget aides to run the CFPB. The nominee is Kathy Kraninger, 43, a woman with a law degree who has never worked in either government regulation or the financial industry.

The CFPB was founded by the Obama administration after the 2008 financial meltdown to keep a watch on banks, payday lenders, and predatory financial institutions. Like he did with Scott Pruitt at the EPA, Trump put Mulvaney in charge to dismantle the operation. Ten days ago he fired the entire 25-member advisory board.

The Intel: Trump’s twitter spat with former CIA Director John Brennan continues. The President tweeted yesterday, “My supporters are the smartest, strongest, most hard working and most loyal that we have seen in our countries history. It is a beautiful thing to watch as we win elections and gather support from all over the country. As we get stronger, so does our country. Best numbers ever!”

The possessive of “country” is “country’s.”

Brennan’s response: “All Americans—not just your supporters—deserve a President who is honest, ethical, selfless, & substantive. Our country faces daunting domestic & international challenges. If there is a scintilla of decency left in you, you would focus on your responsibilities, not on yourself.”

Nation: Two sheriff’s deputies in Kansas City, Kan. died of their injuries yesterday after they were shot with one of their own weapons by an inmate they were transporting. Dpty. Patrick Rohrer was 35, Theresa King, 44. —

Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort has checked into the VIP section of the Northern Neck Regional Jail in Virginia which has previously housed NFL quarterback Michael Vick and musician Chris Brown. Manafort had his bail yanked after he was accused of witness tampering. — In a shocking breech of golf rules and etiquette at Shinnecock Hills, longtime pro Phil Mickelson chased down an errant putt and hit the ball again while it was still moving. That was a two-stroke penalty to his game and reputation. Like they say, golf is a good walk spoiled.

The Obit Page: Stephen Reid, who was a member of the then infamous “Stopwatch Gang” of bank robbers who worked in Canada and the US in the 1970s before he became a successful writer, has died at his island home off British Columbia at age 68.

The snappily-dressed group of three robbers got its name because one of them, probably Reid, carried a stopwatch to keep the job to a two-minute time limit before the cops arrived. Investigators think the gang staged at least 100 holdups during the 1970s and ′80s, making off with about $15 million.

Scratched Out: Political cartoonist Rob Rogers went to work for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1993 and has cranked out four or five pieces a week ever since. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Then Donald Trump became President giving Rogers a bottomless supply of material at the same time the left-wing editorial bent of his paper turned right. For memorial day he drew a cartoon of President Trump laying a wreath at a memorial to “Truth-Honor-Rule of Law.” They killed six of his cartoons in a single week before giving him “guidelines” on what they would publish.

Then they fired him. Editorial page editor Keith Burris told The NY Times the paper was trying to take an “independent” editorial stance and, “A Trump cartoon every day is not interesting, and a Trump cartoon every day that’s not funny and is just enraged is not particularly effective.”

Rogers said he was fired in a meeting away from the paper. “It was like those movies you see on TV where the cop has to hand in his badge and his gun, only I was afraid they were going to ask for my pen.”

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