We learned last week that Donald Trump tried to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller last summer and was only stopped by his own lawyer threatening to resign. This seems like a warning flag that Trump would like to fire Mueller and will need powerful forces dissuading him from doing so. But to congressional Republicans, it’s a sign that everything is fine because hey, Trump didn’t do it then, which is apparently a guarantee he won’t do it if he feels Mueller closing in on him.
“I don’t think there’s a need for legislation right now to protect Mueller,” Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority leader, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Right now there’s not an issue. So why create one when there isn’t a place for it?”
Right now there’s not an issue, and if there suddenly was an issue … Republicans would spring into action and Congress would move lightning fast with no political delays or procedural hurdles? Yeah, sure. And gosh, isn’t it interesting that McCarthy, the man who let slip that Republicans created the Benghazi Committee to damage Hillary Clinton politically, thinks it’s not an issue—“right now” anyway—that Donald Trump was so set on firing the special counsel that it took one of his top aides threatening to resign to dissuade him?
“It’s pretty clear to me that everybody in the White House knows it would be the end of President Trump’s presidency if he fired Mr. Mueller,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on ABC’s “This Week.” [...]
“I see no evidence that Mr. Trump wants to fire Mr. Mueller now,” Mr. Graham said. “So I think we’re in a good spot with Mr. Mueller.”
Boy, “now” is doing a lot of work for Republicans who don’t want to do anything that might apply at a time other than now. Like next week or next month when Mueller’s investigation has developed or 10 minutes from now when Trump has a mood swing.
Also, wow, we’re supposed to rely on the political instincts of “everybody in the White House” on this one? And what evidence exactly does Graham have that it would be the end of Trump’s presidency if he fired Mueller? Because it would be Republicans in the House and Senate who’d have to make it the end of Trump’s presidency, and those guys show no inclination to put any limits on Trump. As in this exact f’ing case, where rather than protect Trump from himself by protecting Mueller, they’re sitting back and basically letting Trump know that they’re ready to take exactly no action at all.