The Republican Party's Obstruction Of Justice

A devastating series of events is shrugged off as business as usual.

- Jonathan Chait

IF ONE RATES the Russia scandal on an impeachability scale of one to ten, with ten being a videotape of Donald Trump speaking in Russian to his handlers from the Kremlin, like Kevin Costner in the last scene in No Way Out, we’re currently at about 7.5. So far, the following events have been credibly reported: No fewer than five Trump associates (Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Jeff Sessions, Michael Flynn, and Jared Kushner) have obscured or outright lied about their financial ties to or meetings with Russian officials. Kushner asked a Russian official during the presidential transition to communicate via a secret communications line. Trump himself appointed a campaign manager who had previously run overseas campaign operations on behalf of Moscow; appeared on-camera during the campaign asking Russia to hack his opponent’s emails, then subsequently denied Russian involvement despite American intelligence concluding the opposite; instructed intelligence officials to try to quash the FBI’s investigation of the Russia scandal, made this request of the FBI director personally while dangling his job, told that director he expected loyalty, fired him when he failed to shut down the inquiry, and privately urged one of his former aides facing investigation to “stay strong”; and then told Russian officials in private and Lester Holt on television that he fired the FBI director in order to stop the Russia investigation. Making all the preceding even more suspicious, Trump has revealed sensitive classified information to Russian diplomats and refused to affirm his country’s commitment to the principle of defending fellow NATO members from attack.