My view for years (and it's been years, including this past year, which was a decade) has been that given the somewhat undersandable reticence to go after The President directly, along with the murky concepts of legality surrounding the presidency, it was necessary to cause pain for everyone around him. If they put a legal shield around the cabinet, go below them, if they put a legal shield around that level, go below them. Make "doing bad things for Trump" like touching a hot stove. At the very least they'd face a massive legal bill and the knowledge that their president suddenly can't remember even knowing them.
It's too late for that, now. Gotta deter the next presidential lawbreaker by providing some consequences for this one.
