Let Mueller Do His Job

It has been obvious for some time that Trump deserves to be removed from office, either via impeachment or the 25th amendment.  I laid out the case as succinctly as I could back in January, to no fanfare.  The #DoYourJob tag I hoped would go viral disappeared without a trace.

Since then, Trump has continued to find new and interesting forms of malfeasance, including (but not limited to):

• Waiting more than six weeks to finally impose sanctions on Russia for attacking our elections, even after his CIA Director warned him that he has 'every expectation' they will attack again in 2018.
• Firing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, obviously because he made perfectly fair criticisms of Russia which Trump couldn't stand for.
• The discovery that he has made hush money payments to one or more women with whom he had extramarital affairs before becoming president.  The sex isn't the big problem; it's the fact that Trump is likely horribly, horribly compromised.
• Required White House staff to sign unconstitutional non-disclosure agreements, stifling both free speech and transparency.
• Firing Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, in a clear abuse of power and attempt to undermine Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump.
• Discussing the possibility of prosecuting Robert Mueller --- not because he's suspected of any crime, but simply to hobble his investigation.  Even discussing such a thing is a clear abuse of power.

All this is, obviously, an order of magnitude worse than anything Nixon or Clinton did.  And yet the Republicans in Congress --- the ones who spent months investigating the non-scandal of Benghazi --- actually CLOSED their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, concluding (are you sitting down?) that Trump did nothing wrong.

Nope! No scandals to investigate here!  But House Republicans aren't sitting around wasting taxpayer money, no sir.  In fact, they're investigating Hillary's emails so furiously, the FBI has had to staff up to handle all of the requests for information.  I wish I were joking.

I have learned my lesson, however.  It's absurd to ask congressional Republicans to do their jobs; they're to far into their Fox fantasyworld where Donald Trump is the saintly, unfairly maligned, humble servant who selflessly gave up the life of a billionaire to serve his country.

Apparently, it's too much even to ask a Congress still obsessed with a non-scandal from 2 years ago to look into any of the scandals Trump seems to generate daily.  So I'm going to make a more modest request.

If you're not going to #DoYourJob, could you at least make sure Mueller can do his?  Let's game this out.

If you're a House Republican, your time is running short.  There's a very good chance you'll only be in Congress for another 9 months (23 of you have already given up), and if you DO win re-election, the Democrats will be impeaching Trump in a little over a year, a fate he clearly deserves.

If you're a Senate Republican, your seat is safer, but you too will face a difficult choice in just over a year.  When Trump is impeached, you'll need to decide whether you can do the right thing and vote to remove him, or stand out as a politician who famously put party ahead of country in exonerating the most corrupt president in history.

Wouldn't it be nice to be on the RIGHT side of history?  And to do it now, when it actually means something?

You can.  Publicly support Mueller, and legislation to protect his investigation.  It's the absolute minimum you can do to uphold your oath to the Constitution.  I understand it's unreasonable to ask you to do more.