The Post and The New York Times are both reporting on what appears to be a serious escalation in the Trump team’s intentions to constrain the investigation of special counsel Robert S Mueller III, and The Post is also reporting that President Trump has privately been exploring the possibility of granting pardons to his family members, and perhaps even himself.
Which means the possibility that we are sliding toward a constitutional crisis needs to be take seriously. Now what?
In an interview with me this morning, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon — a hard-charging Democrat on the Intelligence Committee — sounded the alarm in a big way, suggesting it’s time for Democrats to begin serious outreach to Republicans in Congress about sending a united message to Trump: any effort to remove Mueller is unacceptable and will be met with a forceful response.
“What’s important, now, today, is finding a path to send the strongest possible message that firing Mueller without cause would be seen as an attack on democratic values and the rule of law and that there will be negative consequences,” Wyden told me.
[…]
Now, you might be forgiven for thinking that it’s unlikely that Republicans will act to send a forceful message to Trump that such a course of action is off limits. Yesterday, CNN’s Jake Tapper reported that he had talked to a number of GOP senators who are very critical of Trump’s comments to The Times, in which he suggested that he would not have selected Attorney General Jeff Sessions if he had known Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia probe. But most of them would voice their concerns only under cover of anonymity.
Still, Wyden insists it is imperative that Democrats try to get Republicans to speak up. We must “send the strongest possible message to the president now, today, that there will be consequences,” Wyden says.
–Greg Sargent
Are We Heading Toward a Constitutional Crisis?
40% of American voters seem convinced that Donald Trump is a very fine clever fellow, who is standing up for American interests and generally letting the deadbeats of the world know There’s A New Sheriff In Town. This is 6 months into the Trump presidency, so I suspect the happy notion that we’re all going to get together and impeach The Donald and sing happy songs of bipartisanship to each other is not likely to prevail.
Republicans, after all, managed to hate and despise Democratic politicians and liberal political goals quite consistently. even before Donald Trump decided to run for President. They will probably keep those opinions even if/after Trump is deposed.
Wyden’s in a dream world.
I agree. I was just talking to a friend about how we thought that it couldn’t get worse than Reagan. Then we got George W Bush. Now we have Trump. And we will get worse than him — within a decade or two. The Republicans have shown no interest in protecting the country. Impeaching Trump would be bad for their party. Also: that 40 percent who love Trump are almost exclusively Republicans. So they politicians are not going to push back against that.