The Perjury Trap:President Trump told the Reuters News agency that he could take over the Special Counsel Russia investigation if he wants and do whatever he would like. “I can go in, and I could do whatever — I could run it if I want,” he said. “But I decided to stay out. I’m totally allowed to be involved if I wanted to be. So far, I haven’t chosen to be involved. I’ll stay out.”

He may actually be one of the targets of the investigation.

As the President hunts down critics and investigators, considering stripping them of their security clearances, he said he has not given a lot of thought to revoking the clearance of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Taking Mueller’s clearance would cripple him.

Trump also told Reuters he’s wary of talking to Mueller because he sees the Special Counsel as an adversary in an alliance with former FBI Director James Comey. Trump said, “So if I say something and he (Comey) says something, and it’s my word against his, and he’s best friends with Mueller, so Mueller might say: ‘Well, I believe Comey,’ and even if I’m telling the truth, that makes me a liar. That’s no good.”

The Bully Pulpit: Melania Trump, who is married to the cyberbully-in-chief,told a group of cyberbullying prevention experts yesterday that social media “can be destructive and harmful when used incorrectly.” Her campaign as first lady is “Be Best,” a hollow effort to fight what her husband has perfected.

Within minutes, President Trump let go with a blast of tweets in which he called the former director of the CIA a “hack” and “the worst CIA Director in our country’s history.” He also attacked senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr,  claiming he “is at the center of FALSE ALLEGATIONS which led to a multi-million dollar investigation into what apparently didn’t happen.”

Melania looked lovely, as usual.

Walking Back:President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani yesterday “walked back” his statement on NBC News that “truth isn’t truth.” Walking back is something they do in Washington when they say things that are outrageously stupid and untrue.

Giuliani said on Twitter, “My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic ‘he said, she said’ puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesn’t.”

Back when Rudy was a federal prosecutor, he would have said the defense was lying. Rudy now works for the defense.

Most Foul: A Colorado man charged with murdering his wife and two young daughters told investigators that it was his wife, who strangled the little girls. Prosecutors say Christopher Watts told them his pregnant wife, Shanann, went into a rage when he asked for a separation and she killed the girls, ages 3 and 4.

Authorities say Watts confessed to killing his wife and admitted that he was having an affair with a co-worker. They say that after Watts told his wife he wanted to leave her, he later found the girls dead, and went into a rage himself and killed his wife.

Watts is scheduled to be in court today to face the charges.

Muddy Waters: The Michigan state health director has been ordered to stand trial for manslaughter in the death of two men infected with Legionnaire’s Disease by the public water supply in Flint, Mich.

Nick Lyons is accused of waiting a year — from January 2015 to January 2016 — before issuing a public warning about the danger of infection. At least a dozen people died of the disease.

Flint is where the public water supply was contaminated with lead. The connection between that and the Legionnaire’s outbreak is disputed.

High Tide:Climate change and the threat of rising sea levels are lowering the value of prime coastal real estate, The Washington Post reports. The paper highlights a woman whose historic Charleston, SC home has been flooded so many times she decided to give up and tear it down.

The story says sea levels have risen eight inches since 1900 and may rise another three to seven inches by 2030. A study says that the most vulnerable homes are selling for nearly 15 percent less than houses on higher ground.

The Roundup:At least 11 hikers were killed and more are missing after flash flooding washed out a gorge in a national park in the Calabria region of Italy. A local official said the hikers were  “catapulted out like bullets” and carried about two miles down the valley. — Microsoft says Russian hackers are now targeting conservative American think tanks that have broken with President Trump. The company says it has identified sites that trick people into thinking they were clicking through links managed by the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute but were actually redirected to web pages created by the hackers to steal passwords and other credentials. — A 17-year-old member of the MS-13 gang involved in a quadruple murder on Long Island that became a focus for President Trump, has pleaded guilty, but only to federal racketeering charges. MS-13 members committed 17 murders in Suffolk County from January 2016 through April 2017.

There She Is:A revolt is brewing in the Miss America organization with former pageant winners calling for the ouster of the pageant chair Gretchen Carlson, a former Miss America herself. They say she’s a bully.

Carlson is the former Fox News host who won an enormous sexual harassment settlement from the company. Carlson said she is “surprised and saddened beyond words,” which sounds like something from interview competition.

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