Indeed, almost nothing authoritarian has emerged; he uses executive orders to implement policies because he doesn't have the votes to legislate it.
As for the lack of zeal for investigating the CIA, the reason should be obvious: very few Americans were the direct victims of it. That scandal would only be zealously pursued if there were no other noteworthy events happening.
It is "whataboutism" for me to point out the lack of Republican interest in the CIA case is similar to the lack of Republican interest in the Russian election interference investigation. I only make that point to underscore the lack of lawmaker interest in pursuing a mostly "suspicious foreigner" set of victims, not to claim some difference of virtue between the two political parties.
I agree with you that the CIA scandal is shocking and unacceptable. It is 1) morally wrong; 2) directly results in terrorist organization recruitment; 3) disrupts trade and political cooperation with other countries.
The things he wanted to do during his campaign that may have seemed credible: 1) Muslim ban, 2) Libel law strengthening, 3) Increased law enforcement action, "stop and frisk" policies. None of these lead to an authoritarian state, they just erode the Democratic norms of the Republic.
No laws have been broken by Trump. Hillary Clinton & co. on the other hand have broken _many_ at an egregious level. Lynch and Mueller should similarly be under investigation for covering up crimes as well.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/87570147199986483...
Sadly I doubt this will be dependent on what he actually does vs other politicians. It's entirely about perception.
This Russia congressional hearing is getting 10x the amount of coverage than the CIA torture hearing - if that's any indication of perception vs national priorities.
The blatant criminality and anti-American behaviour by the CIA and the executive branch was far more obvious in that case going into the hearing. They openly destroyed 92 videos tapes of interrogations at a black site which would have provided direct evidence of abuse [1] which not a single person got punished for.
Yet Jeff Session refusing to answer a few questions about private conversations with Trump got more scrutiny than the CIA did when they refused to release a 10,000 page report on their torture practices, using the same legal basis as Sessions did citing executive privilege during Obama's administration.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_tapes_d...