Paul Ryan punts when asked if the Memo vindicates Trump on Russiagate

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Very interesting to see Ryan hedge with Gowdy on the memo. Indictments can come down at any minute and the GOP brass know this. I particularly like this article because it admits this entire memo release was staged at this moment to try and undercut Mueller. Ryan won’t give Trump a lifeline if he tries to fire Mueller.

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You can’t hear the reporter’s question where the clip picks up but apparently it was “Over the weekend, the president claimed total vindication. Was he vindicated in any way?” That’s a trap, as there’s been a sharp break between Trump himself and many Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee over the Memo’s import. Trump, with backing from Devin Nunes, claims that the Memo shows that Russiagate is a witch hunt, rotten with partisanship from the start. Trey Gowdy — and Will Hurd and Chris Stewart and Brad Wenstrup — argue the opposite, that the Page investigation is just a rotten branch in a sturdy many-limbed tree. “He put the memo in one tranche and put the Russia investigation in another tranche, and I think one doesn’t cancel out the other,” said Tim Scott of Gowdy’s appearance on “Face the Nation” last weekend. Exactly right. So which team is Ryan on with respect to the Memo’s significance, Team Trump or Team Gowdy?

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I wish he was Team Trump, though. Not because I think the Memo was a blockbuster but because it’s cynical of Ryan to hand Trump a political bludgeon which he himself seemingly doesn’t believe should carry much weight. Gowdy and Ryan have made the best possible case for the Memo, that Congress has every right to oversee federal agencies (correct) and that FISA abuses are serious business (correct), but it’s pathetic to harrumph that the document does nothing to undermine Mueller when Trump coveted it for precisely that reason. Having declined to fire Mueller on his lawyers’ advice, POTUS is building a heat shield around himself and his intimates. The Memo is that shield, something he can point to as proof that the entire probe is illegitimate if and when Mueller ends up indicting any Trumps or Kushners. Ryan and Gowdy know that and enabled it but they refuse to own it by signing on to Trump’s conclusion. We’ll see what they say if and when those indictments come down and suddenly they’re under nuclear heat from their own base to back Trump up and deride the charges as a “witch hunt.” Given Ryan’s concerns about staying on the right side of Republican voters before the midterms, how could he oppose Trump on that?

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