We have a President making wild accusations about his predecessor that he (the predecessor) had been bugging his phones. That same President is under investigation for having unauthorized (and potentially treasonous) dealings with a foreign power (which is exactly what Flynn and Manafort are implicated in).

When the Republican chairman of the committee (Nunes) investigating the President receives new evidence that might be useful to Trump in making his bugging claims credible, does Nunes go to the committee and deliver this evidence? No, he goes straight to the President and gives THE MAN HE IS INVESTIGATING a first look at it. This is why, as Lindsay Graham and John McCain have remarked, we must have an independent prosecutor look into this matter, not a Tparty kangaroo court.

In hearings up to now, the Republicans in the investigating committee have been pretty much ignoring the charges being leveled at the President and spending an inordinate amount of time grilling the witnesses about the leaks that have implicated the President instead. Now the chairman of that committee, LEAKS new evidence to the press and to Mr Trump. And to think we once accused Conservatives of lacking a sense of irony.

It is pretty clear that the primary goal and priority of the Republican leadership is to protect Trump from embarrassment, or prosecution. Nothing else seems to matter, not the Law, not justice, not patriotismm not legislative procedure, not their own personal reputation, not even national security. What we are seeing in progress here is a putsch. A slow motion coup d'etat.

That must be a pretty big tax cut they're working on for themselves. They're not even making an effort to cover their tracks any more.