What Flake and Graham could really do on the Trump/Mueller issue

As you may have read, Senators Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham have made noises about supporting impeachment if Trump fired Mueller.  You know what I'm going to say, right?

Bullshit.

There is something that Flake and Graham could do, though, if they really wanted to prevent Trump from firing Mueller.  The fact that they aren't doing it demonstrates that they are full of shit.

Remember Jim Jeffords?  I've told this story before.  It was important.  The 2000 election created a 50-50 Senate, so when the White House went to George W. Bush, Cheney got the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, giving the chamber to the GOP.  By one vote.  That included Vermont Republican, Jim Jeffords.  He... didn't get along with Majority Leader Trent Lott.  Lott was a good ole' boy from Mississippi, who eventually had to step down when he told too many people, too many times, that the country would have been better off electing Strom Thurmond on his segregationist platform in 1948.  Back in 2001, though, he was still Majority Leader in the Senate, and he and Jeffords clashed a lot, most famously over something that they have in abundance in Vermont.

No, not pot, nor the hippies that accompany it.

Dairy products.  Lott pushed a provision to cut dairy subsidies.  It was a straw, and there were camels and chiropractors, or... I forget how the metaphor goes, but Jeffords lost his shit because he was a Republican, and he wasn't smoking all of that pot they grow in Vermont, so he actually switched parties.  He was a moderate anyway, so it wasn't a big deal for him.  He decided to give his vote to South Dakota's Tom Daschle as chamber leader, and that one vote was enough to given Democrats procedural control of the chamber.  The Senate went from 50-50 with Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote to 51-49 Democratic.  Because Lott fucked with dairy subsidies.  That was all it took.

Right now, the Senate is 51-49 Republican.  It would have been 52-48 if the Alabama GOP hadn't nominated a child rapist in last year's special election, but... the heart wants what the heart wants.  If two Republican Senators voted to give procedural control to Chuck Schumer, control of the chamber would flip.

Hmmmm.... Two.  I wonder... are there two who have been making noises about anything?  Jeff?  Lindsey?  See where I'm going with this?

Yeah, impeachment ain't happenin'.  However, there is a stalled bill to block the firing of Robert Mueller.  The general Republican response has been that there is no need for any such bill because Trump would never fire Mueller, so don't pass the bill, which... a) is bullshit because Trump absolutely would fire Mueller if he thought it were his best option, and b) completely misses the point of policy insurance and independent investigatory structures.

If Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham really do object that strongly to the idea of Trump firing Mueller, they could jointly issue the following demand:  the House and Senate must pass that bill, or they both flip, and give procedural control of the Senate to Chuck Schumer.  All it would take is their two votes.

This would be a devastating action on their part.  For the rest of the session, Trump couldn't make any appointments, or pass anything.  The 2018 election is coming up, and it's looking bad for the GOP.  The House?  PredictIt currently gives the Democrats a 70% chance or so of taking the House, and while the Senate is trickier given the seats in play, and Flake is retiring anyway, Graham isn't.  That would contribute to the Democratic chances of holding the Senate in 2018 after a Flake/Graham flip.

Carrying out this threat would be brutal to the GOP.

And Jeff Flake is retiring anyway.  What the hell does he have to lose?

You may notice that nothing of the sort is happening.  Why not?  Because neither Lindsey Graham nor Jeff Flake are serious about this.  There would be policy consequences to giving Chuck Schumer procedural control of the Senate, and neither are willing to pay those policy consequences.  As I wrote the other day, this all comes down to the credibility of threats.  Put in terms of "impeachment," both Graham and Flake know it will never get that far.  They are Senators.  Impeachment starts with the introduction of articles of impeachment in the House, and then a trial in the Senate.  Flake in particular doesn't have to worry about this because he's retiring.  A Republican House would never even consider taking up articles of impeachment against a Republican president.

EVER.  UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Graham?  Even if the Democrats take the House in 2018, a) they probably won't impeach, b) they won't get enough seats in the Senate to convict (2/3 supermajority), so his vote won't matter, and c) he's a spineless weasel, so if the Democrats did win the House in 2018 and impeach in the House, he'd just go whichever way the wind blows, and if he has to weasel out of an old promise, that won't bother him.

The point is that if Flake and Graham wanted to do something, they could.  They aren't.  Two GOP Senators are enough to force the party to block Trump from firing Mueller.  Flake and Graham have said they might vote to impeach Trump if he fired Mueller, but... if they were serious, they'd take action.  They aren't taking action.

Therefore, they are full of shit.

Remember, Jim Jeffords gave procedural control to Daschle over dairy subsidies, and these weasels are willing to let Trump get away with high crimes.

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