For the Republican Party, Donald Trump’s P.R. strategy could prove just as critical to maintaining control of the White House as his legal strategy. For months, Trump and his allies have sought to undercut the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russian ties, lobbing repeated bombs at Robert Mueller’s credibility. But Michael Flynn’s guilty plea raised the stakes, spurring Republicans to escalate their rhetoric, particularly in light of a report from The New York Times revealing that Mueller’s lead investigator, Peter Strzok, was ousted amid questions about his political bias. Their outcry hints at a strategy that runs parallel to the actions of Trump’s legal team: play on right-wing doubts about the investigation, sowing popular distrust and priming the public for an eventual Flynn pardon, or even a Mueller takedown.

In the wake of the Times report, lawmakers have moved to publicly express doubt in the special counsel. “The question really is, if Mueller was doing such a great job on investigating the Russian collusion, why could he have not found the conflict of interest within their own agency?’’ Congressman Mark Meadows, the leader of the House Freedom Caucus, asked during a news conference on Wednesday. The same day, Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to the F.B.I. and the D.O.J. demanding more information about the conversations between F.B.I. lawyer Lisa Page and Strzok, the latter of whom also played a key role in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server at the State Department. “Strzok’s behavior and involvement in these two politically sensitive cases raises new concerns of inappropriate political influence in the work of the F.B.I.,’’ the Iowa lawmaker wrote.

Activists and pundits have similarly accelerated their drumbeat of condemnations. Fox News host Sean Hannity lambasted Mueller on Tuesday as “a disgrace to the American justice system.” Tom Fitton, the president of conservative activist group Judicial Watch, has called for Mueller’s dismissal and argued that the F.B.I. sought to cover up the circumstances surrounding Strzok’s transfer. “[Rod] Rosenstein needs to explain what he was doing, what he knew and when, and Mueller needs to explain himself as well. I think Mueller has fewer and fewer supporters in the Republican establishment, because of what he allowed to happen,” Fitton told The Washington Post.

Fox News, too, has drilled down on the Strzok story, with one headline on Thursday emphasizing the “over 10,000” sent messages between Mueller’s team, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page joined the chorus, questioning Mueller’s “credibility problem.” And Trump allies have continued to call for the appointment of a second special prosecutor to investigate Clinton and the Uranium One deal. “First, they want to kick up dust about Hillary Clinton so the conservative press has something to talk about that isn’t Trump’s misdeeds,’’ Matthew Miller, a Democrat and former Justice Department spokesman, told the Post. “The eventual goal, though, is to delegitimize Mueller in such a way that he can either be fired or can be ignored if he concludes the president broke the law.’’

Despite the onslaught of criticism, a number of Republicans continue to voice opposition to White House or Congressional interference in Mueller’s probe. “I can’t imagine him being terminated,” Senator Bob Corker, a vocal Trump critic, told the Post. “To me, that would be a step too far.” But bipartisan efforts to protect Mueller’s job have stalled as Republicans argue that there appears to be no imminent threat to the special counsel. “Based on what’s occurred with Flynn and some of the reports over the past week, I’m not overly concerned that we have to move quickly,” Senator Thom Tillis, who introduced a bill with Democratic Senator Chris Coons to shield Mueller earlier this year, told the Post. “Some of the questions raised about some of the people in the F.B.I. and their behavior and possible biases make you want to go back and look at the role that they played and whether or not there was any bias that was woven into any results or observations they made,” the North Carolina lawmaker added. “But on the whole, I’m satisfied with the way it’s progressing.”

Democrats, however, are not quite so confident in the president’s better judgement, and continue to push for quick action on either the Tillis-Coons legislation or a second bill, co-sponsored by Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Cory Booker of New Jersey. “I feel a sense of urgency to do this—not just for this moment in history, but to create more checks and balances within the system as a whole,” Booker told reporters, according to Politico. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin echoed the sentiment, telling the press, “We should make certain the integrity of the special counsel is protected.”

Even if Trump elects to leave the special counsel intact, there remains the very real possibility that he will pardon Flynn, whom he has painted as a “good guy,” thus removing him from the legal fray. “Pardoning Flynn is a very good idea,” Trump ally Roger Stone told my colleague Chris Smith. “Christmas sure would be a good time, wouldn’t it?”