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It seemed apparent after November 8, 2016 that Donald Trump, who some believe suffers from a malignant narcissistic personality disorder, has regularly engaged in behavior so reckless as to be self-destructive. He disparaged the intelligence community and continued attacks on the media that he had begun during the Presidential campaign. It was a bizarre strategy for a candidate who had won an election with almost 3 million fewer votes than his opponent: Why pick a fight with two entities that have myriad ways to immiserate your inchoate administration? The media, tired of being ridiculed as “fake news” by the thin-skinned Trump, has held nothing back in reporting on the un-truths emanating from the Administration. The intelligence community has been characteristically mute, but it is not unreasonable to assume some of the stories on which the media has reported owe their genesis to information leaked by sources in the very-same intelligence community.

After four months of chaos in his Administration and little in the way of legislative accomplishment*, Mr. Trump has escalated his conflict with the bureaucracy by firing the FBI Director. For reasons known only to him (and, one assumes, a small circle of his advisers), Mr. Trump has discounted Russia’s role in interfering in last fall’s election despite the conclusion of intelligence agencies- both American and those of our allies- that the Russians indeed were the authors of the hacks. He has denigrated the various investigations into the matter as the result of sour-grapes whining by the Democrats for losing an election they should have won. He has taken actions that, on the surface, seemed intended on thwarting investigators: Attempting to prevent the dismissed Acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying before Congressional committees by invoking executive privilege; tasking Administration staffers to pressure the FBI into giving more attention to leaks to the press than the Russian issue itself. The White House went so far as to enlist the Republican heads of the Congressional committees conducting investigations to convince the FBI to alter the focus of its probe.

In spite of these efforts, the FBI was moving relentlessly forward and there were hints of progress: Grand juries reportedly impaneled, subpoenas being prepared. At this point, FBI Director Comey asked his superiors for more resources with which to pursue the investigation. In short order, he was summarily dismissed. We have endured three days of alternate-fact-based explanations of the reasons Comey was sacked.

What is obvious is that Donald Trump has decided to take on the FBI. Perhaps he believes he can intimidate the most formidable law enforcement agency in the country; or he convinced himself that Comey was unpopular within the Bureau and he would be lauded by the FBI rank-and-file. In the final analysis, it may just be an impulsive act by a personality piqued by not being able to bring Mr.Comey to heel. Whatever the motivation, and though this is not the fearsome FBI of J. Edgar Hoover, the President has placed himself in direct conflict with a Bureau that retains many ways to retaliate against those who threaten it. As Zach Beauchamp describes in an article at Vox.com, the FBI has both the resources and the resolve to wage a war against the Administration.

On both the political and legal fronts, Mr. Trump behavior seems patently suicidal. The method he has chosen is to perish at the hand of the FBI.

Suicide by cop.

*Despite the end-zone dance the President and House Republicans did after the passage of the AHCA, it is no way close to being signed into law.