Shades of Nixon

This just happened:

President Trump fired his acting attorney general on Monday after she defiantly refused to defend his immigration executive order, accusing the Democratic holdover of trying to obstruct his agenda for political reasons.

Taking action in an escalating crisis for his 10-day-old administration, Mr. Trump declared that Sally Q. Yates had “betrayed” the administration, the White House said in a statement.

The president appointed Dana J. Boente, United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, to serve as acting attorney general until Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama is confirmed.

Ms. Yates’s decision confronted the president with a stinging challenge to his authority and laid bare a deep divide at the Justice Department, within the diplomatic corps and elsewhere in the government over the wisdom of his order.

And it’s only going to get worse, folks.

Bannon Sidelines Flynn

Per Josh Marshall, this New York Times story about Steve Bannon is a multi-layered thing that isn’t so much about Bannon as about the raging pathology that is the Trump Maladministration. Josh writes:

Good news: Flynn is already being sidelined in his role as National Security Advisor. Bad news: he’s being supplanted by Steve Bannon.

Flynn already appears to be in the process of getting wraithed, the fate of nearly all Trump toadies and sycophants.

Per the Times article, Bannon seems to be the one really in charge of the Administration — he’s the new Dick Cheney, apparently. Michael Flynn got on everybody’s nerves and has been reduced to meekly submitting the daily briefs Donald doesn’t read.