Still, Sasse hasn’t changed his mind about the sentiment—even as it appears likely this bill will simply wither on the vine. “Senator Sasse has explored multiple options to ensure that, if the President tries to deep-six the Special Counsel, the Russia investigation can be sustained and completed under Congress’ constitutional authority,” said James Wegmann, spokesman for Sasse.

“We’ve considered a wide range of options that respect the constitution’s separation of powers–those options include using advice and consent power, funding power, subpoena power, and oversight authority,” he continued.

Hmm. Reading between the lines, “advice and consent” power could include creating a complete and total logjam of nominations required to move nominees. “Funding power” notes the ability of Congress to impose budgetary consequences on a White House. And “subpoena” and “oversight” are reminders that Congress has the ability to bring in any number of administration officials to testify before the intel committee. In other words, the co-equal branches of power actually do have some power—if they would actually employ it.