Deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe has been forced out because Donald Trump thought his ties too close to former FBI director James Comey—the guy who declined to stop investigating now-indicted Michael Flynn at Trump's request. For that, Trump fired Comey.
Next, Trump wanted the investigator who effectively replaced Comey—Robert Mueller—canned because he just didn't like having a special counsel snooping around. But when his White House counsel declined to carry out that order in June of last year, Trump unleashed a scathing campaign in July to publicly shame his Attorney General Jeff Sessions so he could appoint someone to the post who wouldn't recuse themselves from the Russia investigation. Trump had originally humiliated Sessions in a private meeting in May, just after learning that Mueller had been appointed. But Trump's public rebukes in July marked an escalated effort to unseat his own attorney general. During the same interview that he broadsided Sessions, Trump also launched his first offensive on another one of his own appointees, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, along with then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
Shorter: Trump began sniping at the three top law enforcement officials in the nation in order to finally ax the guy leading the investigation into him. Hmm.
One of the reasons McCabe even lasted this long is because another Trump appointee who eventually took over as FBI director, Christopher Wray, reportedly refused to fire McCabe at the behest of Sessions, who has apparently happily taken over as Trump's hit man on the rule of law. Gee, nothing says "foremost law enforcement official in the land" like becoming the executioner of justice itself.
Sessions, through some combination of bowing to Trump's every wish and a desire to remain attorney general at any cost, has managed to retain his title. But Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Russia investigation, might be next on Trump's chopping block—Republicans are already formulating a plan to force him out on allegations that he improperly vetted a warrant for an FBI wire tap.
Of course, Rosenstein's real sin was testifying last year that he saw no reason to fire Mueller, the guy Trump has raged about since the moment of his appointment. That placed Rosenstein squarely in Trump's crosshairs and now the Devin Nunes’s wing of the GOP is happily taking up the cause, just like Sessions did with McCabe.
Trump's all-out assault on the rule of law is as stunning as it is scary. He fired Comey over the Russia investigation. He ordered Comey's replacement fired. When he couldn't get that, he began a campaign to systematically oust the people standing in his way—the top three law enforcement officials in the country, two of whom are Republicans and his very own appointees. Trump has now succeeded in forcing out the third (who was no longer heading the FBI) and looks to be knocking down the door of the second in command so he can finally appoint someone who will be amenable to axing the special counsel he began railing against on the very day he was appointed.
Republicans are responding in one of two ways—they're either doing Trump's bidding on unseating Rosenstein or expressing close-to-zero urgency about passing legislation to protect Mueller's appointment.
The zero-urgency crowd—like GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins—better wake up and smell the coffee. How many more ways does Trump have to obstruct justice before they admit that he's deliberately trying to obstruct justice? By the time Trump succeeds in ousting Mueller, their present-day passivity will prove complicit in the collapse of our nation’s rule of law.
And the United States will truly find itself locked in the jaws of a tyrant.