It certainly is entertaining to think ofMichael Flynn singing sweet arias over the banquet he’s serving up to Robert Mueller’s investigators, but, even before that news broke, we learned that the president* is fully capable of (allegedly) obstructing justice without Flynn’s help. From The New York Times:

Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, the intelligence committee chairman, said in an interview this week that Mr. Trump told him that he was eager to see an investigation that has overshadowed much of the first year of his presidency come to an end. “It was something along the lines of, ‘I hope you can conclude this as quickly as possible,’” Mr. Burr said. He said he replied to Mr. Trump that “when we have exhausted everybody we need to talk to, we will finish.” In addition, according to lawmakers and aides, Mr. Trump told Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri and a member of the intelligence committee, to end the investigation swiftly.

Let’s see. He tried to get James Comey to call off the dogs. Comey refused. The president* thereupon fired him. He also was leaning on a Senate committee to do the same. If you think that sounds like a textbook obstruction of justice—to say nothing to the violence it does to the constitutional separation of powers—then you’re probably not an influential Republican senator.

Republicans played down Mr. Trump’s appeals, describing them as the actions of a political newcomer unfamiliar with what is appropriate presidential conduct. Mr. Burr said he did not feel pressured by the president’s appeal, portraying it as the action of someone who has “never been in government.” But he acknowledged other members of his committee have had similar discussions with Mr. Trump. “Everybody has promptly shared any conversations that they’ve had,” Mr. Burr said. One of them was Mr. Blunt, who was flying on Air Force One with Mr. Trump to Springfield, Mo., in August when he found himself being lobbied by the president “to wrap up this investigation,” according to a Republican official familiar with the conversation. Mr. Blunt was not bothered by Mr. Trump’s comments, the official said, because he did not see them bearing a “sinister motive.’’

I have scanned the Constitution thoroughly and find no provision whereby a president gets a pass on obvious offenses because he comes into office stupid and unprepared, and already bearing enough clouds of criminality around him to blot out the sun. The congressional Republicans are hopeless, as the carnival act around this tax bill proves. There are no moderates. There isn’t any one of them who isn’t a fake or a sellout in one way or another, in some cases, hilariously so. Venality knows venality.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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