Abandon Trump!

Don't go down with the ship, Republicans

President Trump.
(Image credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

With Special Counsel Robert Mueller's flurry of news — including the indictment of President Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and the guilty plea of George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to Trump — the metaphorical noose is tightening around America's 45th president. We're not yet in impeachment territory. But the most plausible scenario is now that by putting the screws to Manafort and his also-indicted business partner Rick Gates, Mueller will find his way to potentially serious allegations against Trump. Indeed, the indictments are almost certainly specifically intended as a way for Mueller to get to Trump's inner circle by putting pressure on Manafort and Gates. You don't need to believe that Trump is a Manchurian candidate; you just have to recall that this is the law of special prosecutors. There's always something. We commit three felonies per day. Once a prosecutor with limitless resources is on you, it's not a matter of if, but when.

This is the reality. There's no denying it. And this means that Republican leaders must decide now what to do with the fact that President Trump will be the focus of a scandal that will rank at least above Bill Clinton's impeachment trial in terms of gravity, even if it doesn't reach the level of Watergate.

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Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is a writer and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His writing has appeared at Forbes, The Atlantic, First Things, Commentary Magazine, The Daily Beast, The Federalist, Quartz, and other places. He lives in Paris with his beloved wife and daughter.