Yeomans: “Teflon Trump?”

Washington, D.C., October 30, 2017 – In the latest edition of Yeomans Work, “Teflon Trump?”, AFJ Ronald Goldfarb Fellow for Justice Bill Yeomans writes that Republicans are circling the wagons around the President even as the Mueller Russia probe morphs into a criminal investigation.

“Last week, as Mueller closed in on his first indictments in the Russia investigation, the Republican Party signaled its no-holds-barred defense of Trump through a coordinated assault from members of Congress and right-wing media outlets,” Yeomans writes. “Trump tweeted himself closer to the panic zone, using all caps and exclamation points, suggesting that he may eventually lash out through abuses of his presidential powers. This full display of Republican capitulation to Trump tees up the question of whether anything Trump could do would damage his prospect of serving a full term.”

Significantly, Yeomans notes, House Republicans are now abdicating their responsibility to look into the Russia scandal. He writes:

“The House committees will now devote their time and the public’s resources to investigating appropriate “unmasking” by Susan Rice, the Democrats’ partial funding of the Steele dossier, and allegations that Hillary Clinton corruptly intervened to give Russians control of twenty percent of U.S. uranium ore. The House Intelligence Committee, House Judiciary Committee, and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will now focus their sights on these targets, putting aside any urgency to get to the bottom of the Russian attack on our democracy. The Republican response is firmly grounded in fantasy. Congressional Republicans seem intent on implementing the careful plans they laid to undermine Hillary Clinton’s administration. All that staff work and nothing to do with it. So what if she lost. Impeach her anyway.”

Bill Yeomans is available for interviews: contact Laurie Kinney at laurie@afj.org.