All of this puts more pressure on Congress to act. Although some top Republican senators have pledged to deepen their investigation of Russian involvement in the election, the party’s response over all has been irresponsible. “I think that situation has taken care of itself,” Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said on Tuesday about Mr. Flynn. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was equally dismissive: “It just seems like there’s a lot of nothing there.” Then there was Senator Rand Paul, who put partisanship ahead of national security by declaring “it makes no sense” for Republicans to investigate Republicans.
Of course, Republicans pilloried Hillary Clinton for nearly two years for using a private email server, a bad decision, but one that didn’t endanger the nation. And they conducted eight futile investigations into Mrs. Clinton’s role as secretary of state during the 2012 Benghazi attack.
Now the same Republicans seem intent on helping Mr. Trump hide the truth by refusing to investigate Russia’s hacking and other attempts to influence the 2016 election, as well as Mr. Trump’s connections to Russia and affinity for President Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Trump has no more urgent task now than putting in place an experienced national security adviser who is beyond reproach. With the world in turmoil, his three-week-old administration is consumed by a self-inflicted crisis, marked by a pattern of recurrent lying and incompetence, and perhaps worse.
