More barriers crumble

Worse.

Press secretary Sarah Sanders said that the White House had brokered a meeting at which two key Republican chairmen would hear from the leaders of the Justice Department, FBI and the intelligence community following weeks’ worth of requests for the classified material.

No one from the White House is scheduled to be present, Sanders said — nor, at this point, are any senators or any Democrats, in defiance of a request from the Senate minority leader.

So it’s a Republican meeting to see secret documents from an ongoing investigation. Not a Congressional meeting but a Republican one.

“A lot of people are saying they had spies in my campaign,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “If so, that would be a disgrace to this country. I hope there weren’t, frankly … but some man got paid based on what I read in the newspapers.”

The White House and its supporters have been sandblasting the Justice Department and the FBI for months; the leaders of both law enforcement agencies have steadily been giving ground. Thursday’s meeting is the latest example, although it wasn’t clear precisely what documents Nunes and Gowdy are expecting and whether they will receive them then.

I think we’re doomed. I think they’re going to complete the coup before November.

“It’s really important that we conduct the proper oversight of the executive branch to make sure that power is not or has not or will not be abused,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters on Tuesday.

The House intelligence committee, Nunes, and other lawmakers threatened Rosenstein with contempt of Congress or, potentially, impeachment.

For a while, Rosenstein took a tough line, vowing that DOJ wouldn’t be “extorted,” but the battlefield shifted after the reports about the confidential informant.

Then Trump weighed in more strongly than ever with a “demand” for more information from the Justice Department, and Rosenstein acceded to it Monday. He traveled to the White House for a meeting with Trump, White House chief of staff John Kelly and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

One outcome was an acknowledgment by the Justice Department that its IG, Horowitz, will expand an inquiry he was already conducting into the ongoing Russia investigation to include its use of sources and surveillance.

The second outcome was the meeting on Thursday that Kelly has brokered between Hill leaders, the Justice Department and the FBI. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had urged the Trump administration to include Democrats but none were included in the White House’s announcement.

“The only thing more outrageous than this meeting occurring at all is the fact that it’s now partisan,” Schumer said. “It is crystal clear that Chairman Nunes’ intent is to interfere with the investigation, and Speaker Ryan is allowing it to happen.”

They’re winning. Apparently nothing can stop them.

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