You want us on that wall. You need us on that wall. That was essentially the point of a remarkable — even historic — op-ed posted by the New York Times Wednesday, anonymously penned by a senior administration official practically crying out for help.

You heard this, too, in the recent revelation, reported in the Times, that Don McGahn, the White House counsel, had been talking for hours with prosecutors working for Robert Mueller. Reading between the lines of that remarkable story, it seemed that McGahn was offering a novel defense of his boss — and himself — in the Russia inquiry.

Sure, Trump had ordered him to fire the attorney general at one point, McGahn told Mueller’s team. Sure, Trump had raged on about seizing the investigation from the Justice Department. Yeah, the president routinely wanted to do things that would probably qualify as criminal obstruction of justice.

But that’s all OK, because McGahn didn’t follow orders!