New York Magazine has a rather scary piece entitled The Republican Party Is Gearing Up for War on the Rule of Law by Jonathan Chait. Maybe it’s just his speculation, but it sure fits the messages coming out of the White House.
[I]n the days leading up to the first arrests, beginning today [i.e. 10/30] with former campaign manager Paul Manafort, the signals have changed, and the dashboard is now flashing red. The party apparatus is gearing up for a frontal attack on Mueller in particular, and the idea that a president can be held legally accountable in general.
The article contains this quote from The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page:
A president cannot obstruct justice through the exercise of his constitutional and discretionary authority over executive-branch officials like Mr. Comey. If a president can be held to account for “obstruction of justice” by ending an investigation or firing a prosecutor or law-enforcement official — an authority the constitution vests in him as chief executive — then one of the presidency’s most formidable powers is transferred from an elected, accountable official to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats and judges.
So this appears to be the R’s plan in a nutshell:
In July, when Trump was calling for the prosecution of Clinton, he was also insisting he had the “complete power to pardon” himself or anybody else. The two courses of action — neutering investigations into himself, and ordering them against Democrats — seem to be linked in Trump’s lizard brain. House Republicans appear to be intent on generating investigations against Clinton and the Obama administration in pursuit of their spurious alt-collusion conspiracy.
Go read the whole thing to get your Halloween Scare. And please do be prepared to hit the streets if Trump fires Mueller.