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On one hand, the steady drumbeat of Republican lawmakers gunning for special counsel Robert Mueller could potentially land us in a constitutional crisis.
On the other, it's one of the greatest political gifts Republicans could possibly offer to Democrats heading into 2018.
Think about this: Republicans are mounting a flimsy attack on the Russia probe to protect a wildly unpopular president with abysmal approval ratings in the low 30s who nearly three-quarters of voters say Russia tried to hand the election to.
The Russian government tried to influence the 2016 presidential election, voters say 73 - 22 percent, including Republicans by a narrow 50 - 45 percent.
Voters say 41 - 28 percent this interference changed the outcome of the election.
Just let the optics sink in of Republicans using their unfettered power to insulate a president from an inquiry that the vast majority of Americans believe is legitimate.
Now, here's a glimpse of the GOP firing squad Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein faced Wednesday during a House hearing.
“Have you seen ‘good cause’ to fire Special Counsel Mueller?” Rosenstein was asked early in a lengthy hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.
“No,” Rosenstein answered, as he stuck to that observation throughout the hearing, leaving GOP lawmakers aggravated.
“This is unbelievable,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who chastised Rosenstein just like the Ohio Republican demanded more information last week from the FBI Director, taking aim at several top FBI officials, whose private texts showed them with little respect for President Trump.
Last week, FBI director Christopher Wray took a similar battery of questions from the same committee as GOP lawmakers questioned the agency's integrity and impartiality.
With a 2018 course correction looming ever larger after Alabama, this line of attack is tantamount to committing political suicide. Sure, Trump dead-enders might get fired up over it, but the GOP is already heavily burdened by the fact that, historically, a president's party almost always loses seats in the midterms. Voters are already predisposed to providing a check on the president and, in this case, that urge will be super-charged by Republicans’ monopoly grip on power in Washington.
And Republicans are now overtly using the same power voters will seek to check next year to give Trump a pass on an investigation most Americans wholeheartedly support. Russia certainly won’t be the only issue that energizes voters next year, but the GOP effort to malign Mueller and potentially upend his probe only serves to inflame a concern the electorate is already highly sensitized to.
No wonder the job approval ratings of the GOP-led Congress currently sit at an eye-popping 10 percent, according to PPP.
Carry on, my Republican friends. As if voters weren't agitated enough, keep on pressing this Russia point—it's sure to be a political winner.