As Trump continues to attack the Mueller investigation's criminal findings into his coterie of grifters, we're seeing the outline for what is the ultimate authoritarian presidency. Issuing a legal memo to Mueller, then leaking it and falsely claiming that leak came from Mueller's office allows Trump to get his ideas out ahead of a subpoena while also claiming the Mueller investigation is a rogue operation.

According to his lawyers, Trump not only can order any investigation to end or be initiated at his whim, he is incapable of being charged with a crime, can pardon himself anyway. And if that wasn't' enough, his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, says he can actually shoot the FBI Director dead if he so desires. That it's legal, technically, but that he'd be impeached the next day.

I'm actually not so sure he would, which is the crisis we now face. There is no real check on the presidency outside of impeachment. Shame, public approval, fear of losing elections—that can keep some impulses in check, but as we've seen throughout history you can more or less break the law all the time and never face any real consequences. Now we get to find out how far the envelope can be pushed!