Susan Glasser: “For most of the last two years, the departure of Mattis from the Trump Administration under such circumstances was seen, even by many Republicans, as the sort of move that would prompt a destabilizing backlash, an outcome that would inevitably have severe political consequences for the President. Last spring, after Trump fired his first Secretary of State and second national-security adviser, the retired general Barry McCaffrey told MSNBC that the exit of the respected Secretary of Defense would, as the host Chuck Todd put it, ‘bring down the Trump Administration.’”

Said McCaffrey: “If you try and push out Mattis… I think the Republican leadership would finally say, ‘Whoa, now we’re in trouble.’ I don’t think it’s going to happen. If it does, we’re in trouble.”

“Well, on December 20th, it happened. But the Republican leadership has not risen up against Trump. The national-security establishment has not quit in droves, even if a couple of senior State Department officials have followed Mattis out the door. The President’s poll numbers have not collapsed, and the members of the G.O.P. in Congress who once said that Mattis was the only thing standing between Trump and utter chaos confined their protest over his departure to a few mildly critical cable-TV appearances and newspaper op-eds.”

“As special counsel Robert Mueller wraps up his Russia probe, investigators have focused on conflicting public statements by President Trump and his team that could be seen as an effort to influence witnesses and obstruct justice,” CNN reports.

“The line of questioning adds to indications that Mueller views false or misleading statements to the press or to the public as obstruction of justice… Mueller hasn’t addressed the issue publicly, but prosecutors have dropped hints that they view public statements as possibly key in influencing witnesses.”