The Russia investigation and apparent White House cover up swallowed Washington whole this week as everyone from Donald Trump to House Intelligence chair Devin Nunes to Speaker Paul Ryan sought desperately and unsuccessfully to contain the sordid narrative.
The flurry of activity—which included welcome and seemingly sane appearances from the Senate Intelligence Committee—was absent one voice: former acting Attorney General Sally Yates.
It became clearer by the day this week that almost all the Russian investigation news was driven by an effort to silence Yates, who was set to testify on Monday before the House Intelligence Committee. That didn’t happen after Nunes hastily shut down that public hearing and ground his committee’s investigation to a halt. Notably, the ranking Democratic member of the committee seems to think Yates has some pretty explosive information.
For the moment, we can only speculate on what that information might include, but former national security adviser Michael Flynn was indeed seeking immunity to testify with no luck as of Friday. Flynn “certainly has a story to tell,” his lawyer advertised, dangling his client’s juicy testimony before the FBI and intelligence committees. Getting immunity wouldn’t entirely insulate him from criminal prosecution, but it would make a prosecutor’s job much harder.
Although Trump backed Flynn’s come-on to the intelligence community Friday morning, the former national security adviser’s failed advance might just be the first step in an “every man for himself” stampede. As for reading into Trump’s “this is a witch hunt” tweet seeming to support Flynn testifying, we must always remember how “ignorant of his own ignorance” our unfortunate pr*sident is, bless his heart, as they might say in the South.
The silver lining in this week’s big top show was that White House containment failed—miserably. The effort to muzzle Yates, which many people believe leads back to shadowy Trump advisor Steve Bannon, blew up in the faces of everyone involved. Nunes’ duplicity was revealed. The White House officials who reportedly gave Nunes the goodies he then relayed at his bombshell press conference were left dodging reporter inquiries. By Friday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer flamed out in front of the press corps like a meteor entering the earth’s atmosphere. After you’ve been dabbling in alternate universes too long, the earth’s gravitational pull can be a real bitch.
Team Trump may have managed to navigate the politics of 2016, but the maze of the vast federal bureaucracy Steve Bannon seeks to “deconstruct” might be the ultimate undoing of Trump’s White House. Remember, Obama aides—realizing the extent of Russian interference and likely fretting for our country’s future—urgently worked to spread the intelligence throughout that vast federal bureaucracy in advance of Trump’s takeover. After years in the White House, Obama aides—many of whom had more governing experience in their pinky fingers than Trump’s entire top White House staff—likely had the competence to layer those intelligence nuggets in ways Bannon & Co. will never be able to comprehend. At least, here’s hoping.
But for now, we are left with the gaping absence of input from Yates, a totally compromised House Intelligence investigation, and a House Speaker who refuses to do his patriotic duty despite working toward legislative goals he’s shown no capacity to achieve.
Keep in mind the supposed bargain Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have made all along: They’d look the other way on Trump’s total lack of fitness for office in service of repealing Obamacare, cutting taxes for the rich, overhauling the budget, etc. Now that the Republican caucus has proven just how unlikely it is to make good on the legislative end of that bargain, you might think Paul Ryan would elevate country over failing partisanship.
But to borrow a quote from Ryan himself: “No and no.” That lofty millisecond of an answer was what he uttered this week when asked whether Nunes should recuse himself from the Russian investigation and if he knew who Nunes’ deep throat was.
Ryan’s continued commitment to blissful ignorance as the body he ‘leads’ crumbles around him brought me back to the question of whether our institutions can insulate us from the perils of the Trump regime. It’s a question I first started pondering late last year after reading Russian journalist Masha Gessen’s third rule for surviving an autocracy: “Institutions will not save you.”
What’s become clear over the last several months is that our institutions might save us, but they are only as good as the people serving within them. As Europe historian and “On Tyranny” author Timothy Snyder told NPR: "Our institutions don't defend themselves. The institutions only make it when people themselves do the little things that they can do as individuals."
In ten short days as acting Attorney General, Sally Yates gave her patriotic best: Informing White House officials that one of their own—a powerful Trump loyalist—was making liars of them; and declining to use the institution of justice she briefly led to provide cover for an order she deemed wholly unjust.
Yates demonstrated exactly the type of integrity that could save our republic at this perilous moment in history.
By comparison, Paul Ryan has become a de facto traitor to our democratic ideals by undermining the institution under his charge that is designed to protect them. Americans seem to know that—he’s now polling below Trump as the “most unpopular politician” in the country at 21 percent. Trump might be too ignorant and flawed to realize the havoc he’s wreaking, but Paul Ryan knows better and he’s chosen to turn his back on our country.