A Fairbanks-Weather Friend

Now that GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it clear that no legislation to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller will ever get a vote in the Senate, let alone a Trump signature, useless "moderate Republicans" like Alaska's Lisa Murkowski are more than happy to sign on to an effort that requires nothing on their part.

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said this week that the Russia investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller III should be allowed to proceed to its natural end and that she would support legislation approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee to protect the inquiry.

Murkowski, in a wide-ranging interview with the Daily News-Miner editorial board Wednesday, also praised the FBI and said the agency has a "a serious and significant role" in the investigation.

"I have said all along that Mueller should be allowed to take this investigation wherever it takes him and his team," she said. "And I said that at the beginning and I repeat that, because I believe very, very firmly in that. And I think any efforts to thwart that are dangerous.

"If the investigation takes them to an additional turn that needs to be followed, I think this is what we're asking for when we ask for an independent investigation," she said. "That means that the president can't meddle. That means that the attorney general can't meddle. That means that the United States Senate can't meddle, and I just firmly believe that they should be able to take it where it goes."

Murkowski added, however, that she doesn't want to see the investigation go on indefinitely — "You know, this is going to be years and years and years" — and that the probe eventually must reach its natural end.

"And I think you have people of goodwill and good faith that are working to do just that," she said.

"I do not subscribe that this is some kind of a witch hunt," she said, referring to President Donald Trump's oft-repeated criticism of the special counsel inquiry into alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election and that now appears to have spread to other matters involving Trump and his associates.

Murkowski doesn't face Alaska voters until 2022, and by then Trump will either have his second term or will be gone, so either way Murkowski, like the rest of the GOP senators elected in 2016 along with Trump, doesn't have to do anything at all.

It's easy for Murkowski to say whatever she wants about Trump, but expecting her to do anything is ludicrous.  No Republican will lift a finger to stop Trump or to protect Mueller and/or Rod Rosenstein when the time comes, and it pisses me off to see Murkowski try to take credit for something that she'll never actually act upon.

All of the GOP has to go.