To the Editor:

Re “House Panel Advances Contempt Case vs. Barr Over the Mueller Report” (front page, May 9):

“Well, Doctor, what have we got — a Republic or a monarchy?” “A Republic, if you can keep it,” was the response of Benjamin Franklin at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 .

The phrase “constitutional crisis” is too vague to describe the danger posed to our Republic by the actions of the Trump administration and the acquiescence of the G.O.P.

When Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin decided that he would judge whether Congress had a legitimate legislative purpose when demanding tax documents, and when Attorney General William Barr said President Trump could invoke executive privilege over release of the full Mueller report and related evidence, Franklin’s “if you can keep it” became “if you can keep Donald Trump from becoming the dictator of the United States of America.”

Our Constitution created three separate and equal branches of government precisely to prevent a president from becoming a monarch.