Since I started posting at Goodlatte Watch, I have noted the following:

— All Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote to committee chair Bob Goodlatte in November asking him to schedule hearings on the potential conflicts between Donald Trump’s business interests and his future position as president of the United States.

— All Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Goodlatte in May urging immediate hearings on President Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey.

— All Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Goodlatte in June sharply questioning his reluctance to hold hearings on the Trump administration’s possible obstruction of justice, the firing of Comey and the actions of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

— After President Trump answered “100 percent” to a question about whether he was willing to testify under oath about his conversations with Comey before he was fired, Congressman Luis Gutierrez in June called on Goodlatte to invite Trump to do just that.

— All Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Goodlatte in July to demand hearings after Trump in a New York Times interview attacked the credibility and fairness of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and after news emerged of a 2016 meeting between Trump campaign officials and a Russian government attorney.

— All Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Goodlatte in August asking for hearings on Trump’s pardon of former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted for ignoring a federal judge’s orders to stop detaining people based solely on the suspicion that they were in the country illegally.

— After a counter-protester was murdered by a white supremacist in Charlottesvile last August, even one of Goodlatte’s Republican colleagues on the Judiciary Committee wrote to him calling for a hearing on the dangers posed by white supremacist groups.

After ignoring all these requests– and not even having the courtesy to respond– Goodlatte has revealed what he considers far more important than any of the above: an investigation into the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails.

With this move, Goodlatte’s willingness– eagerness– to put party above country is on full and ugly display.

In his powerful speech announcing that he won’t seek reelection next year– a speech which ought to make Goodlatte and the vast majority of Congressional Republicans hang their heads in shame– Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona said: “Acting on conscience and principle is the manner in which we express our moral selves, and as such, loyalty to conscience and principle should supersede loyalty to any man or party.”

But Senator Flake is a Republican with integrity.