Media coverage of the Trump-Russia investigation has gone off the rails. Here’s what’s really going on.

| 9:45 am EST December 16, 2017
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Click your heels three times and say “Donald Trump is about to fire Robert Mueller,” and you too could have been a professional political pundit this week. After all, it’s the only thing we’ve heard most pundits (on the left and right) saying this past week. Not only is that not the real story, they know it’s not the real story. After a week full of hype, some of the smartest pundits took a deep breath and admitted it’s not the real story.

Rachel Maddow tried to bring the madness under control on Friday night when she invited four legal experts onto her show. After they spent an hour theoretically talking about what would happen if Trump fired Mueller, and if Trump pardoned Flynn, she finally cut to the chase. At the end of the episode she asked one of them point blank if Trump will fire Mueller. The answer: “No.” She then asked another if Trump will pardon Flynn. Again, the answer: “No.” None of the other panel members spoke up with a dissenting view. They all know that’s not the story. So what really is going on here?

The Republican Congress is making all the anti-Mueller noise that it can, so that once Mueller takes Trump down, it can tell Trump’s base that it tried to stop Mueller. This is all about the 2018 congressional elections. The Republicans in the House and Senate care infinitely more about getting themselves reelected than they do about what happens to Trump.

The Republicans in Congress just used up what little political capital they have left to pass a deeply unpopular tax scam bill that their wealthy donors were demanding. They know they just made it harder for themselves to get reelected, but if they hadn’t bowed down to their donors, they wouldn’t have had any chance of reelection anyway. They’re not going to turn around and saddle themselves further by helping Donald Trump get off the hook for his crimes. They’re fine with Robert Mueller taking him down; then they won’t have to answer for him while running for reelection anyway. They just want Trump’s base to think they’re not happy about Trump’s demise.