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But the complete argument for revoking Kushners clearance is actually much broader.

Kushner and the White House would have had little credibility if theyd denied the claims in the Washington Post and Reuters reports, but the fact that they havent seriously challenged them should be read as confirmation. If Kushner had not requested illegal access to secure Russian communication facilities he would have every interest in refuting reporting to the contrary. That he has not done so suggests an awareness that such an explicit denial might ultimately be contradicted by evidencea secret recording of the meeting, or the testimony of ousted National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who is the target of an FBI investigation.

So the intelligence end-run reporting is almost certainly true, and it is thus also almost certainly true that Kushner lied on his clearance form. That these contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak didnt simply slip his mind. And that, knowing all this, he nevertheless encouraged his father-in-law to fire the FBI director.

The threat to security is at least twofold. First, by seeking the channel in this way, Kushner implicitly revealed that there are things he was happy telling the Russian government that he didnt want the U.S. government, then under Barack Obamas control, knowing. Nobody with such motives, if they were known to the government, would ever have received a clearance. Second, by telling lies to the U.S. government that the Russian government may have had the capacity to expose, Kushnerjust like Flynnwas vulnerable to blackmail.

Again, Paul Ryan seems not to care about any of this, much as he and other leading Republicans, like Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, dont care that Trump went to Europe and vandalized the Western alliance. This kind of enabling behavior defines the Republican Party today, and is often and correctly interpreted as part of the endless collateral damage Republicans will tolerate in pursuit of tax cuts. But the focus on Ryans motives, rather than his actions, reduces his abdication of duty to a partisan or ideological calculation. Something appropriately left in the realm of politics.

But its much more severe than that. Trumps election was a catastrophically destabilizing event in and of itself, and people like Ryan were complicit in it. But to an under-appreciated extent, the amount of damage Trump would ultimately be capable of inflicting was a question for Congress as much as Trump himself. America cant unelect Trump, or annul his presidency, but it would be straightforward for the countrys other political branch of government to signal to the world that it would never allow a U.S. president to permanently upend the foundation of trust underlying the post-war global order without good reason. If a presidents advisers have malign intent with state secretsin many cases secrets shared between nationsnothing says Congress has to tolerate it. If the president himself is reckless with those secrets, or with his foreign policy in general, nothing in the Constitution says Congress must sit on its hands. Quite the contrary.

Instead, Trump returned to the U.S. in a wake of outraged howls from allied countries, and amid news reports that his top adviser tried to subvert U.S. intelligence agencies with the help of a Russian spy, and the top Republican foreign policy guy in Congress said the presidents first trip abroad was executed to near perfection, while GOP leaders shrugged off Kushners mind-boggling improprieties.

What theyre telling the world is that if another figure like Trump emerges promising to upend U.S. alliances and run a rogue, untrustworthy administration, one of Americas two political parties will welcome him, and help him get away with it.

Read more:
How Republicans Are Helping Trump Destroy the U.S.'s Global Credibility - New Republic