GOP Congress has Donald Trump where they want him
House Speaker Paul Ryan, seen here on Jan. 11, 2018. Credit: AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
The Republicans who run Congress emerged from State-of-the-Union week with President Donald Trump right where they want him — in their debt.
Under Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) the House majority offers the president his strongest line of political protection against possible charges from special counsel Robert Mueller.
There are several potential White House uses for the Intelligence Committee memo released under Trump-loyal Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).
At the minimum, the memo helps cast doubt on the integrity of the FBI and, to some degree, the Justice Department. It puts Trump’s antagonists on the defensive.
Even if Mueller gets an impeachment referral before the Congress anyway, the memo’s arguments will assist Trump’s defense.
The memo is crafted for the very chamber that would be expected to judge him on the allegations, possibly of obstructing justice.
This congressional protection effort for Trump would disappear if Democrats win the House in November. That’s all the more reason the GOP now has Trump in its corner.
In his first annual address to Congress last Tuesday, Trump was clearly making nice with the purveyors of his legislative protection. He did nothing to heckle or offend them or challenge their authority.
And on Thursday, as the president addressed a GOP congressional retreat in West Virginia, his mundane introductory remarks became most telling.
Referring to the leadership, he said: “They’ve become very good friends. And we’re now in battle together and in friendship together.”
Trump soon turned to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and said: “Thank you, Mitch. Great guy. That was a big win we had, Mitch.”
With his ex-bomb-thrower Steve Bannon out of the way, Trump no longer has a visible link to renegade primaries against “great guy” McConnell’s majority.
Early-morning Trump tweets complaining about Congress failing to do this or that have been on hiatus — with all bile directed at the Democrats he needs his protectors to defeat next fall.
From the stage in West Virginia, he poured on the deference.
“Paul Ryan called me the other day, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this, but I will say that he said to me, he has never, ever seen the Republican Party so united, so much in like with each other.”
Two days earlier, a key piece of the president’s speech praised the new tax changes. These were crafted by Capitol Hill Republicans and signed by Trump.
GOP lawmakers applauded him, but more significantly, he applauded them. Now, for all to see, the bellicose “outsider” president was suddenly in line, dependent, kissing up and minding his manners — just as the House’s usefulness against Mueller and the FBI becomes plainer.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
