The Flake Out Fake Out Continues

Retiring Arizona GOP Sen. Jeff Flake appears to be unfettered by the party of Trump and is saying whatever appears to be on his mind these days in his self-serving exit from the Senate, but at least we have a Republican threatening to take action in case Trump cans Robert Mueller.

Sen. Jeff Flake, one of President Trump’s most prominent Senate critics, told The Washington Post in an interview Tuesday that he would support impeachment proceedings against Trump if the president ends special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election “without cause.”

“We’re begging him: ‘Don’t go down this road. Don’t create a constitutional crisis. Don’t force the Congress to take the only remedy that Congress can take,’ ” said Flake (R-Ariz.). “To remind the president of that is the best way to keep him from going down that road. To fire Mueller without cause, I don’t know if there is any other remedy left to the legislative branch.” 

Flake compared any possible effort by Trump in the coming weeks to end the Mueller probe to President Richard Nixon’s infamous 1973 firing of the special prosecutor during the Watergate scandal.

“If [Trump] fires [Mueller] without cause, how different is that from what Nixon did with the ‘Saturday Night Massacre’?” Flake asked. “He left before impeachment came, but that was the remedy then, and that would be the remedy now.”

It would be.  But Flake isn't actually going to do anything about that knowing full well that impeachment will never get past Paul Ryan in the House this year regardless of what Trump does, and that Flake will already be gone when Democrats most likely take over the House in 2019.

What Flake is actually doing is testing the waters in 2020 to primary Trump, because being in the Beltway for years has somehow convinced him that Never Trump Moderate Republicans still exist.

Flake — who recently traveled to New Hampshire and is considered a potential Trump challenger in the race for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination — said he was speaking up Tuesday about the prospect of impeachment because Republican warnings have been unsuccessful in holding back Trump’s criticism of Mueller’s probe. Flake expressed alarm over how the president’s attacks on the investigation have seemed to escalate over the past week as the president faces mounting legal and political challenges. 

Flake also credited Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) for taking the lead in talking about the possibility of impeachment proceedings — a topic most Republicans are eager to avoid. 

Earlier Tuesday, Graham told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that firing Mueller, “if he did it without cause,” would “probably” be an impeachable offense.

Flake said in the interview: “Nobody wants to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it. As soon as you mention the i-word, that’s all people want to talk about.”

Flake is about as useful as Graham is too.  Both Senators are supposedly critics of Trump, but Graham supports the Trump position on votes 88% of the time, Flake 86%.  I don't buy Flake's fake out and neither should you.