It's your move, Paul Ryan

Just days ago, explaining his support to release the Nunes memo, Speaker Paul Ryan spoke of needing transparency on whether an American citizen's identity may have been exposed inappropriately by a FISA warrant application.  (Oddly, releasing the memo will now give world-wide exposure to that person's identity, so that's an odd reason to give to start with.)  

Ryan went on to say that this is separate from the Mueller investigation and has nothing to do with it -- therefore:  
   "People should not conflate the two."

But conflate the two is exactly what President Trump has done with his Friday morning tweet:

"This memo totally vindicates "Trump" in probe.  But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on.  Their (sic) was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead).   This is an American disgrace!

Well, first, it's not true that nothing was found.  Two campaign staffers have pled guilty and are cooperating witnesses, while two others are now under indictment.

Back to Ryan.    Paul Ryan bears some responsibility for this debacle.   When the head of the FBI and the Deputy AG came to him to plead for his help by stopping Chairman Devin Nunes' demands that they supply him with top secret documents, Ryan sided with Nunes.

Secondly, Ryan totally supported releasing the memo to the public, subject to the approval (including declassifying material in the memo) by the president.   In doing so, he made that little-noticed clarification about not conflating this with the Mueller investigation.

Deaf ears from Republicans -- who only wanted this as a political tool and as a pretext for Trump to fire Rosenstein so he can install a more malleable overseer of Mueller's investigation.

SPEAK  UP,  Speaker Ryan.   You let it happen.   Now it's up to you to try to rein in your attack dogs.    Our democratic institutions are at risk.     You are one of the key people to do something to stop the destruction you helped start.

Ralph