Now that Republicans are armed with William Barr’s three-page letter proclaiming Donald Trump not at all exonerated of some very narrowly defined charges, they’re eager to use those flimsy pages as a hammer to strike down their enemies. And they’ve seized upon the idea that they should punish—punish!— everyone who ever spoke the simple truth about how Trump and members of his campaign knew that Russia was attempting to sway the 2016 election in his favor, welcomed that intrusion, and took advantage of Russia’s help.
High on the list of those Republicans would love to see humbled is Democratic Representative Adam Schiff. As the head of the House Intelligence Committee, Schiff has restarted the investigation that Devin Nunes chopped off before it could get warmed up. Schiff has supported the call for Trump’s taxes and a deeper diver into Trump’s connections with other foreign entities. But right now Schiff is focused on one thing: Getting the DOJ to cough up the actual Mueller document instead of Barr’s “summary.”
Republicans would love to see Schiff humbled, or better yet, have him replaced as chair of the Intelligence Committee by someone who knows that even with Democrats in charge, Republicans can still knock out a committee chair. Only they can’t. Because Schiff isn’t going anywhere. This morning, Republicans thought it would be cute to ambush Schiff with a call to resign. After which a visibly upset Schiff blasted their stunt with well-deserved candor.
But waylaying Schiff on the House floor was just one part of the brilliant plan. Since before the Barr letter appeared, Republicans have also had a brilliant scheme in mind to undermine Democratic House members by … taking away their security clearance. Because, as a thousand articles have said when discussing Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, the White House has absolute, unfettered ability to control security clearances. They can give top secret clearance to a dilettante who lied over a hundred times on his security form and rushed off to share a hit list with his buddy the prince. They can take it away from a national security expert who had the bad grace to point out the emperor was naked. Disgustingly naked.
So, the theory goes, all Trump has to do is snatch away the security clearance from Schiff and other Democrats in the House or Senate who have positions requiring them to examine classified material, and they will have to resign, because they won’t be able to do the job. Boom! Yeah. Boom. But … not the way they think. Because that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
Thisessen may be the Fox news clown who got his nose bonked over this idiocy, but he’s far from the only, or the first, to suggest it. Ever since Trump decided that taking away clearances was a dandy way to throw scorn at his critics, the idea of shutting down Democrats in Congress by “taking away their clearance” has been circulating on the right. And since the Barr letter appeared, the idea of removing clearances from Schiff, along with Representative Eric Swalwell and Senator Mark Warner, specifically to force an end to Congressional investigations into Trump, has been generating high-fives across the Fox-o-sphere. Too bad it’s not possible.
Of course, if it was possible, it would be nice to think that honorable Republicans would never stand such a massive overreach by the executive branch sticking its hand in to stifle the authority of the legislative branch. It would be nice … if honorable Republicans weren’t even less real than Trump’s ability to pull Schiff’s clearance. To see how true that is, you only have to look at the collection of miserable jackasses who tried the “resign” stunt on the Intelligence Committee Thursday morning.
