Donald Trump just fired FBI Director James Comey, compromising the only semi-credible and somewhat-resourced investigation into Trump and his administration's ties to Russia. Trump fired Comey on the advice of Jeff Sessions, who was forced to recuse himself from Russia-focused investigations because he lied under oath about his own conversations with Russian officials.

We now face a constitutional crisis. The security and integrity of our democracy is at stake.

Comey's record at the FBI isn't flawless—plenty of people take issue with the way he handled investigating Hillary Clinton's emails in the days before the election, and the news reports today about him mischaracterizing backing up emails as forwarding them don't help. But the argument that Trump would fire Comey for being overly critical of Clinton, when Trump personally led chants of "lock her up," is absurd. This isn't about good governance. It's about BAD government and the kind of cronyist cabal that fires someone who a week ago testified that he was made nauseous by the thought of helping Trump win office.

Comey's firing comes just one day after former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates told senators that she had warned the Trump administration that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was vulnerable to being blackmailed by Russia. As Yates astutely said: "To state the obvious: You don't want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians."

Since Trump's inauguration, House Democrats have repeatedly exposed Republicans' hypocrisy by introducing measures (15 and counting) in the House that have forced Republicans to address, on the record, Trump's taxes, Russian entanglements, and more.4 But when faced with demands for action, Republicans have acted nearly universally to hide the truth about Trump and his associates, and House members such as Representative Devin Nunes have gone so far as to undermine investigations.

It's now well beyond time for Republicans to take action to expose the truth.