Rogue Republicans Conspire to Protect Trump

This is an absolutely extraordinary betrayal — and the leadership of the Republican Party is not going to do a damn thing about it, because their vaunted patriotism is a fucking lie:

A group of House Republicans has gathered secretly for weeks in the Capitol in an effort to build a case that senior leaders of the Justice Department and FBI improperly — and perhaps criminally — mishandled the contents of a dossier that describes alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia, according to four people familiar with their plans.

A subset of the Republican members of the House intelligence committee, led by Chairman Devin Nunes of California, has been quietly working parallel to the committee's high-profile inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. They haven't informed Democrats about their plans, but they have consulted with the House's general counsel.

That would be the same Devin Nunes who had to "step aside" from the Russia investigation because he completely destroyed his credibility by running interference for the White House during the investigation by the House Intelligence Committee, which he chairs, of Russian election meddling and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

Nunes was a member of Trump's executive transition committee, and thus should have recused himself from this investigation in the first place. Then he behaved with such egregious partiality, he was forced to remove himself from the investigation. And now he's leading a secret group "to highlight what some committee Republicans see as corruption and conspiracy in the upper ranks of federal law enforcement."

That final product could ultimately be used by Republicans to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether any Trump aides colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign — or possibly even to justify his dismissal, as some rank-and-file Republicans and Trump allies have demanded. (The president has said he is not currently considering firing Mueller.)

Republicans in the Nunes-led group suspect the FBI and DOJ have worked either to hurt Trump or aid his former campaign rival Hillary Clinton, a sense that has pervaded parts of the president's inner circle. Trump has long called the investigations into whether Russia meddled in the 2016 election a "witch hunt," and on Tuesday, his son Donald Trump Jr. told a crowd in Florida the probes were part of a "rigged system" by "people at the highest levels of government" who were working to hurt the president.

...Nunes' office declined to comment about the effort, but he has aired his suspicions about the law enforcement agencies before.

"I hate to use the word corrupt, but they've become at least so dirty that who's watching the watchmen? Who's investigating these people?" he said in a Fox News interview earlier this month. "There is no one."

That just the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee — who, it turns out, is "investigating these people" — arguing that he is literally above the law.

At this point, it's not just that Republicans in the House and Senate are failing to hold Trump accountable; they are actively working to impede and discredit anyone who is.

Their job is to provide checks and balances on the presidency. It is not to protect the president from consequences of unethical and possibly illegal behavior, which might additionally be treasonous.

That Donald Trump believes he is above the law is vile enough. That the rest of his deplorable party agrees is chilling.

One man does not subvert our democratic norms and systems to usher in authoritarianism on his own. He has help, and lots of it. The Republican Party is willing, even eager, to provide all the help that Trump needs.