Time after time, Republican members of Congress have had opportunities to hold Trump accountable, on matters ranging from personal conduct to political interference in criminal investigations to the fighting of wars, and time after time, they have opted against. Now, some members are taking that to its logical conclusion by leaving Congress altogether. It’s not just Ryan. It’s also Representative Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee and one of the most talented (and entertaining) questioners in Washington. (Gowdy, more than Ryan, seems to just hate being in Congress.) It’s Bob Corker, who warned that Trump was going to start World War III. To a certain extent, it’s Senator Jeff Flake, who has maintained a months-long rhetorical barrage against Trump, but decided to leave the Senate rather than fight a possibly losing primary campaign.

The shirking of oversight is not an abstract question. Tuesday evening, The New York Times reported that Trump sought to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller in December, after previously trying to do so in June. (Trump was reacting to an inaccurate report that Mueller was digging into Trump’s own bank accounts, making clear how Trump’s desire to fire Mueller is entirely about protecting himself, even if it’s not clear what he’s so worried about Mueller finding.) Meanwhile, CNN reported that Trump is considering firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in order to make it easier to corral Mueller. And on Tuesday, the White House press secretary asserted that Trump has the authority to fire Mueller directly.

Congress could act to solidify Mueller’s position, and to protect him from what is plainly a campaign of attempted political interference by the White House. Ryan and his Senate counterpart, Mitch McConnell, have both said they believe Mueller should be allowed to complete his work, but words are as far as they’re willing to go. When Trump gestured at firing Mueller last month, a spokeswoman for Ryan offered boilerplate: “As the speaker has always said, Mr. Mueller and his team should be able to do their job.” On Tuesday, McConnell said he would not bring forward bipartisan legislation to protect Mueller, reasoning, “I haven’t seen a clear indication that we need to do something to keep him from being removed.” The problem here is there’s no obvious intermediate step before Trump fires Mueller; by the time McConnell can see a clear indication, it will be too late.

This may be the freshest example of Ryan’s aversion to oversight, but it is only one of many. Back in May 2017, my then-colleague Molly Ball wrote on Ryan’s see-no-evil approach to Trump, as the speaker tried to pretend the president didn’t say wild things, and that the House policy agenda was on track. “There was a grim, haunted look in his bright-blue eyes, and it wasn’t hard to imagine why,” Ball wrote. Asked about whether the GOP would be better off with Mike Pence as president, Ryan replied, “I’m not even going to give credence to that.” Yet Ryan’s own members were saying so.