I can’t believe I’m about to write this.

I find myself almost awash in truly excellent news coverage about the dishonest and corrupt Trump administration.  Not only is Trump himself despicable and openly evil, his minions have been really amazingly corrupt and venial.  Time and again, his nominees have perjured themselves under oath, when asked directly and specifically about exactly those issues.

And yet, neither the FBI nor a special prosecutor would be a good idea.

Huh?

I don’t really want any kind of prosecution yet. I’m reserving the right to demand those later, sure, but not now.

Right now, I just want to know the truth. Trump’s amazing disregard for facts notwithstanding, the truth is more important than ever. The Trump administration cannot seem to sneeze without lying about the results, so I don’t have much hope there.

The Republican party, for all the individual concerns voiced by Russia hawks Sen. John McCain, Rep. Darrell Issa, and others, continues to vote as a body to hide every bit of possible Russian interference, time after time, along party-line votes.

The New York Times has its own breaking story: Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking. Before Trump took office, the Obama administration was terrified about being seen as politicizing the election, but they had were equally concerned about the disturbing connections between Trump and the Russians. They decided to withhold the information, presumably on the assumption that Hillary Clinton would win and she’d deal with it later.

When Hillary surprised everyone and lost the election, the Obama administration realized their mistake. They took steps to try to ensure that the incoming Trump appointees couldn’t simply remove the incriminating information they’d found so far.  They squirreled the intelligence away in many duplicate places and worked out various classification schemes that gave the basic story the widest distribution, while limiting the specific details about sources to the highest, most compartmentalized classifications they could swing. They couldn’t stop the new political appointees from seeing the sources, but it limited the number of people with that access, to protect the sources.

The Washington Post published their own breaking story:  “Sessions spoke twice with Russian ambassador during campaign”. During his confirmation hearings, Jeff Sessions swore, both in person and in writing, that he had no dealings with Russia, ever. He was specific and definite. Now people in the Justice department say Session was lying.

Sessions, unsurprisingly, denies this.

Now that he’s Attorney General, Sessions has famously not said that he’ll recuse himself from the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign, despite his operational role in that same campaign. Sessions hasn’t said he won’t recuse himself, either, but it’s alarming that it isn’t a automatic response.

[Mar. 3 Update: Sessions says he’ll recuse himself.  But still denies that he really lied. He just said stuff in response to specific, hard questioning, that wasn’t true. And that’s not exactly lying, right?]

It’s odd that Justice Dept. people already knew the facts long before Trump’s election, but didn’t say anything until now.  The Times says they have two sources — their rule for anonymous sources — so I think it’s true, but it’s unusual.

I’m also surprised that Sessions lied, knowing that the Russian Ambassador was monitored constantly. It’s the same question I have about Michael Flynn, who lied about his own conversations with that same Russian Ambassador, despite knowing it was all being transcribed.

Anyway, for all the potential illegality of Trump, his connections with Russian oligarchs, FBI Director Comey’s highly unethical behavior, the Russian election hacking, and so on, I’m not looking at criminal charges yet.

There are two kinds of investigations for governments: investigations for prosecution, and investigations for information.  The FBI is looking for illegality, and if it isn’t illegal, they’re done.  They go home, or at least they should. (That’s one reason that FBI Director Comey’s prolific disclosures about Hillary Clinton’s email before the election was so odd, and his editorializing so shocking. That’s easily, obviously and definitively not what the FBI is supposed to be doing.) A special prosecutor would operate independently, but the general rules are the same: prosecute, or shut up. It isn’t their job to explain.

I worry that each resignation will be seen as somehow closing a door. If that’s what happens, I don’t want to see people fired, charged, arrested, or resign. I want to know more than who took what actions. This is our government, doing our business. I have the right to know what’s being done in my name. And I want to know that our government, in its three branches, is capable of finding that truth.

But I’m not seeing that our government has the capability to find the truth.  The Republicans have been stonewalling everything, from obscure stuff to simple things. The President lies reflexively every time he speaks, filling the high-level posts with cronies and apparatchiks plotting purges.  He’s nominating one or more Supreme Court nominees and more high-level judicial appointments than I can begin to count.

And our representatives stand around, mouths hanging open, watching each new atrocity in stunned silence.

Here’s an example.  Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) offered a resolution for the House to get 10 years of Trump’s tax returns and review them in a closed session. Then they’d vote what to release to the full House. The Republicans voted that down today in another party-line vote. It’s not entirely surprising — in the base form, the Democrats probably could still have leaked stuff — but Republicans don’t have anything else they’re offering in its place.

Republicans can simply say ‘no’, over and over, and be loyal to their party and their President. What they can’t be is patriotic Americans. This is a question of party over country. So far, they’re choosing loyalty to ‘party’ at every fork in the road.

I am honestly and deeply scared for us.