Closing In

   The special counsel's probe into shenanigans in Washington is moving closer to the White House and the doings of its staffers.
   The son of the president doesn't want to talk to the investigators, claiming his conversations with his father are privileged. That's not likely to pass muster, since neither is an attorney.
   The next step would be to subpoena him -- the son, that is, and if he still declines, cite him with contempt.
   Moreover, as the trail leads closer to the Oval Office, it's quite likely that the president himself will be invited for an interview with the investigators.
   But what if he declines the invitation, claiming executive privilege as chief law enforcement officer of the country? As president, that is one of his responsibilities.
   So if he refuses to talk voluntarily, will the special counsel subpoena the president, and will the president reject the subpoena on the same grounds, similar to the argument made last week that because he is the president, he cannot be accused of obstruction of justice because he is the president?
   Round and round it goes, and where does it stop? To the courts, of course, and eventually to the Supreme Court.
   Then we have a clash between the president and SCOTUS. The two are, according to the Constitution, co-equal branches of government, along with Congress.
   Not according to the new guy, of course, who seems to feel he's the boss of everybody, and when you're the boss, you can do anything. It's sad enough that the members of his own party, the Republicans, have a slim margin in each house of Congress, and have been falling in line behind his leadership, such as it is.
   But when the president rejects a request and defies a subpoena from an investigator into major wrongdoing on the ground that he himself is the nation's chief investigator and therefore can't be investigated, it's time for the nation's chief arbiter of the law and the Constitution to step in.
   SCOTUS v. U.S. President, the case file will be.
   And that story will dominate the news cycle for months.