Time For GOP Congress To Stop Cowering & Do Their Job

(Caricature of the Republican elephant is by DonkeyHotey.)

The following is just part of an excellent editorial from the New York Times editorial board:

Congressional Republicans have been operating under a see-no-evil policy with President Trump: ignoring his lying, his subversions of democratic norms and his attacks on government institutions or, when that’s not possible, dismissing such outrages as empty bluster — as Trump being Trump.

This brazenly partisan act has become even more strained since Tuesday, when Michael Cohen, the president’s longtime lawyer and fixer, directly implicated the president in criminal activity. Mr. Cohen asserted in a plea deal with federal prosecutors that, in the closing weeks of the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump directed him to use illegal campaign contributions to pay hush money to two women who said they had sex with him. . . .

And how did Republicans in Congress react? They didn’t, if they could avoid it. John Cornyn, the majority whip in the Senate, shrugged that he had “no idea about what the facts” of Mr. Cohen’s guilty plea were “other than  the fact that none of it has anything to do with the Russia investigation.” The office of the House speaker, Paul Ryan, said it needed “more information.” Most members opted for silence. . . .

While breaking campaign finance laws may not sound as serious as, say, obstructing a criminal investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to help him get elected, it, too, violates the integrity of the American electoral system. If Mr. Trump arranged secret payments to hush up his affairs, then he conspired to deny voters information he feared would harm his electoral chances. His efforts to hide the money trail suggest he knew his behavior wasn’t kosher. And while the initial payments to the women were made before Mr. Trump won the election, he didn’t begin compensating Mr. Cohen until February of 2017 — thus any conspiracy was carried straight into the Oval Office. 

Every week seems to bring fresh evidence that Mr. Trump, his inner circle and his main backers do not consider themselves bound by such pedestrian concepts as truth, ethics or the law. The latest confirmation for that was the corruption indictment of Representative Duncan Hunter, Mr. Trump’s second campaign supporter in the House. The first, Representative Chris Collins, was indicted two weeks ago on insider-trading charges.

The good news is that, for the most part, the justice system seems to be dealing with the problem pretty effectively. Both the courts and the Department of Justice are working to uncover the facts and serve the public good. 

Congress, unfortunately, remains crouched and trembling in a dark corner, hoping this is all a bad dream. It’s not. Republican lawmakers need to buck up, remind themselves of their constitutional responsibilities and erect some basic guardrails to ensure that — in a fit of rage, panic or mere pique — this president does not wake up one morning and decide to drive American democracy off a cliff.