Criminal law, Justice, Lawyering, Media, Politics

Mr. President, If “Many People Have Said You Should Fire Mueller” . . . Many People Are Wrong

440px-Director_Robert_S._Mueller-_IIIdonald_trump_president-elect_portrait_croppedPresident Donald Trump  renewed his public discussion over firing Robert Mueller after the search of his lawyer’s office, a move that would be the single most destructive act since  . . . well . . .  Trump fired James Comey.  It would not only not stop the investigation but it would expand calls for impeachment.  The statement clearly thrilled many of his critics who relished the idea of the largest unforced error in history since New York Giants center fielder Fred Snodgrass blew Game 8 of the 1912 World Series with the Boston Red Sox.  Of course, dropping that ball cost New York the World Series. This could cost Trump his presidency.  I have a column out this morning in the Hill on this issue.

Trump attacked Sessions, Rosenstein, Mueller, and Comey during a meeting on the Syrian conflict. Many people swallowed hard at this line “We’ll see what happens. Many people have said, ‘you should fire him.’ Again, they found nothing and in finding nothing that’s a big statement.”

The move against Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, could play into Trump’s long desire to move against Mueller and others at the Justice Department. As with the Saturday Night massacre, however, such moves only magnify the costs for a president.  When President Nixon moved to fire of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox. it triggered the subsequent resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus on October 20, 1973. It simply led to the appointment of Leon Jaworski.

As discussed earlier, if Trump were to fire Mueller now, Trump would put his very presidency at risk. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and White House counsel Don McGahn likely would resign in quick succession.

Moreover, Congress could reinstate the Independent Counsel Act, which existed until 1992. Indeed, Mueller could conceivably be reappointed under that law. Finally, Congress would likely embark on its own investigation, including a possible impeachment process. In other words, firing Mueller is unlikely to achieve the desired end of stopping the investigation. It would, however, likely stop the Trump administration from doing anything other than crisis management over the firing.

Trump is right that there are people calling for Mueller. They are wrong, Mr. President.

 

442 thoughts on “Mr. President, If “Many People Have Said You Should Fire Mueller” . . . Many People Are Wrong”

  1. Trump, his administration and all the other U.S. / Israeli Zionist War Criminals should be arrested before they can start World War III.

    Washington, DC is so evil it may be destroyed as Nazi Berlin was destroyed.

  3. Pingback: Lou Dobbs And Sean Hannity HAVE HAD IT With Mueller, Unleash On Him Like A Hurricane

    1. President Trump will never be impeached. As a matter of fact he will win re-election handily. Too many people have received raises in their paychecks. Money always talks and BS walks. Oops did I say that? LOL.

      1. Ohioans went for Trump and they haven’t seen the raises. The Trump super pac paying the 30 something year old “advisor”/former Jason Miller lover, $120,000, should place her site of employment in Ohio, to boost average income statistics.

      2. Haha. The real question is whether the lame duck congress with the pissed-off Republicans will do it, or wait for the January tide of Democrats.

        this is to “but hannity told me everything was gonna be peachy” deano

        1. Keep jerking yourself off. It’s the most enjoyment you’ll get.

        2. I see you made many assumptions on my behalf. You know what happens when you assume. The last person who called me Deano got punched in the face at school. I do not watch Fox either so you have strike 3!

  5. The Nuremberg Defense. A plea of guilty with an add on of asking for clemency based on the statement “I was only following orders.” Not a defense but an admission of guilt.

  6. Whilst I concur that firing Mueller would be a trigger to impeachment, I dont concur that it has a Comey parallel.

    Comey was fired because he had failed in the most fundamental aspect of his role – AND had lost the confidence of “BOTH” sides of Congress who were demanding his sacking.

    For me his sacking was demanded and inevitable when he failed to pursue indicting Clinton, instead introducing legal irrelevancies that “she didn’t intend to” (violate those laws). When intent isn’t an element of many of the laws in question, her intent is no more relevant to culpability than her attire – indeed he might well have said, “Although there is evidence that she violated the law, I don’t intend to indict Clinton because SHE WAS WEARING PANT SUITS AT THE TIME”. Comey thus failed to allow the opportunity to test the evidence – for which the proper domain was a court of law.

    Firing Muelller now would be a very different kettle of fish.

  7. Your Deep State at work:

    Situation #1: Ukrainian businessman Victor Pinchuk gives $150,000 to Donald Trump.
    Result? DOJ Deep State Mole Robert Mueller investigates Trump by breaking the attorney-client privilege.

    Situation #2: Ukrainian businessman Victor Pinchuk gives $13,000,000 to the Clintons, an amount that is more than 8,566% more than the amount of money that Pinchuk gave Donald Trump.
    Result? Nothing. DOJ Deep State Moles Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein do nothing about the Clintons.

    Explanation: Robert Mueller, Jeff Sessions, and Rod Rosenstein are Deep State Moles who are dedicated to destroying Donald Trump’s presidency. The Clintons are immune from any investigations because they too are Deep State Moles.

    The ironclad, indisputable Adamo Principle? The Deep State ALWAYS takes care of its own.

    1. Recheck Fox commentator, Ralph Peters’ resignation letter rebuking deep state propaganda.

      1. Ralph Peters is a never Trumper and called Obama a “pussy” for which he was suspended from Fox news. He never was one who I liked. He tries to act morally superior and slams the US for the war in Iraq that he supported. He ended up voting for HRC. His positions change with the wind but he likes to believe he can predict the future. Too much BS for me.

        Linda likes BS so she sucks up to anyone that has beliefs that transiently agree with hers. Then forgets all the other beliefs that person held when she quotes the headlines.

    2. Mueller and Rosenstein are guild partisans whose careers have incorporated long stretches in public positions. They’re untrustworthy trash, and it would be condign punishment if both were disbarred. Wray is another odoriferous character. Sessions is an elected official and has a completely different set of biographical markers. I’ve found Sessions a disappointment, but I’m hoping he’s just holding his cards close to his chest for now.

      One thing I’m hoping will be the outcome is that the Department of Justice and the FBI are broken up into a mess of component parts and that there’s a massive purge of the upper ranks of the FBI, the U.S. Attorneys, and the central Divisions of the Justice Department. The Civil Rights Division is one among several units which should be eliminated entirely.

    3. @Ralph Adamo April 10, 2018 at 11:51 PM
      “Your Deep State at work:”

      I’ve seen little evidence that Sessions is a Deep State asset, but have seen an abundance of it that the other people you mention are.

      Those who poo-poo the idea that a coordinated, politicized law enforcement effort is afoot to bring down Donald Trump, should check out and attempt to refute what attorney Joseph diGenova says in this interview, in which he points out in great, coherent detail the extra-legal nature of the assault on Trump:

      1. You jumped the shark; when diGenova is presented as anything but a charlaran, you have lost your right to credibility. Maybe Autumn can suggest some NZ indie newspaper for further insight.

  8. Illustrative column from the Editorial Board of the Post. I’ll put it here so the mouth-breathers can experience what a real President would think and say, and what patriots who aren’t kooks are thinking now…

    HERE IS how President Trump responded to Monday’s news that the FBI obtained a warrant to search the office of his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen:
    “It’s a disgrace, it’s, frankly, a real disgrace, it’s an attack on our country in a true sense. It’s an attack on all we stand for.”
    “Attorney–client privilege is dead!”
    “A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!”

    Here is what a presidential president, and one with nothing to hide, might have said:

    “No one is above the law. Michael Cohen has been my personal attorney for a long time, and he is entitled to a presumption of innocence. But his association with me does not and should not shield him from the workings of the law. Monday’s FBI raid proves the strength of our democracy and the institutions that sustain it.
    “Some of my supporters might protest that this is an instance of prosecutorial bias on the part of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. They say he has assembled a team of Democrats on a witch hunt. I appreciate their enthusiasm. But Mr. Mueller is a longtime Republican with a sterling record of probity.
    “In any case, neither the special counsel’s party affiliation nor that of his lawyers matters. Over decades we have built institutions with a higher mission than advancing the interests of one party over another, and there are public-spirited people serving in those institutions whose first priority is to the rule of law. This is a rare and precious advantage that the United States has over many other countries, where power and politics determine who gets justice and who is denied.
    “It is important that Americans remember that the country is bigger than any one person, with values and institutions that sustain our democracy from presidency to presidency. I am just one in a long line of caretakers. Those of us who are fortunate enough to be entrusted with this awesome responsibility must continually prove that we are worthy of the honor. That includes scrutiny of the associates we keep and the private dealings we engage in.
    “This action could not have taken place without the review and approval of a series of independent officials, including Deputy
    Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, whom I appointed. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan got the warrant. They had to persuade a judge to issue that warrant, and they had to vault a high legal bar to do so, because raiding a lawyer’s offices risks exposing privileged communications between attorney and clients.
    “I have confidence that the Justice Department will follow its carefully designed rules to protect attorney-client
    communications. If investigators discover evidence of a crime, the law and common sense dictate that investigators can use that evidence; otherwise, such material is off limits.
    “Under extreme political pressure, our justice system has worked honorably, and I trust that it will continue to do so, which is why I have assured the Justice Department that Mr. Mueller and all other prosecutors can continue their investigations for as long as they need with no interference, pressure or carping from me.”

    2. It took you long enough to fly your true colors. All the way to the middle before the leftist jargon got the best of you, “Our Democracy?” What Democracy is that pray tell. Not in the Declaration, Not in the Constitution. Mentioned nine times in the journal (minutes) of the two Constitutional Conventions all nine in negative terms and was rejected without further comment. Did not rise again until the party system started up.. The inability of a Democracy to cope with the goals of the founders in a country as large as the founders found themselves facing was it’s own downfall.

      Let it remain buried save for one particular area of use. In the beginning of any political government forming and any group of citizens setting up shop something like the Mayflower Compact is useful Followed by a Confederation followed by Republic (of, for, and by the people and citizens to define the word more fully)

      But once delegates to whatever, city council county commission state assembly are chosen the representative delegate system kicks in and when it goes as far as forming States into a Nation State. the delegates become something else. Removed from their source. No longer democratic. Still at the local level democratic prnciples are useful in banding to gether for a number of reasons. Recall is one . IF you haven’t given it away.d Maybe 17 states have recall and none hold sway over those delegates electged to national office. That was tried in 1992 Supremen Court exempted the Congess from Recall.

      So your pretty pipe dreams don’t last as far as Sacramento. There is no Democracy, It doesn’t and never has existed and even so if it did the Party with that name is very very far from anything resembling followers of democratic principles.

      Think back to King George III and his ‘agents’ Substitute A Lenin or a Hitler and you are getting closer to those who promote a socialist autocracy.

      But as far as the rest of it is concerned. A lot of eyewash wiped out in one small phrase. King George we kicked your butt once and want no part of your socialist dream.

      We are independent self governing thinking, reasoning citizens of a free nation. There is no room for you nor your … democracy… in our Republic. And take your RINOs with you.

      1. Unfortunately, and yet again, what isn’t morbidly incoherent gets distracted by semantics. I’m sorry for your condition.

        this is to “I got plenty of this kinda weird sh*t to cut and paste” mikey

        1. Mark M:
          There’s a significant distinction between a our republic and a democracy. Plato understood that basic concept of government de-evolution: Aristocracy (a government based on wisdom) is stable, but how over time Timocracy (a government based on honor), leads to Oligarchy (a government based on wealth), leads to Democracy/Anarchy (a government based on liberty and equality), leads to Tyranny (a despotic authoritarian state devoid of liberty and law and with extreme inequality). Read Plato’s Republic.

          1. That’s interesting as a point of departure. It’s not as if no political sociology has been written since the death of Aristotle. (David Benson’s go-to guy for economic theory is apparently John Stuart Mill). Just to point out that the lapse of time between the life of Solon and those of Plato and Aristotle was about 240 years. British North America was founded in 1604, so just a configurative study provides more data than Aristotle would have had contemplating the history of Attica and other Greek city-states.

                  1. Hereditary aristocracy is the only sort of aristocracy that has ever actually existed. Unless you rate The University as a true aristocracy on the model of its founder, Plato.

    3. Do you characterize one-sided no-knock Gestapo raids as a justice system that “has worked honorably”?

  10. This stuff plays out like that three-way gun fight scene in my favorite flick, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly “(circa1966) with Blondie Eastwood, Tuco Wallach and Angel Eyes Van Cleef all afraid to make the first move. If Blondie Trump fires at Tuco Mueller, Angel Eyes Rosenstein has to go too, lest he find another hired gun to shoot Blondie. If he fires at Angel Eyes Van Cleef, Tuco gets him for obstruction. Personally, I do what Blondie does in the movie. If you don’t know what happens, watch the next scene I post. For now, just sit back and enjoy the incomparable Susanna Rigacci vocalizing:

  11. Since Trump says he can in fact fire Mueller, how could he in fact do it? Tweet “You’re fired, Bob”? And then Bob would say, “No I’m not, I would have to be fired for cause. What cause?” It seems to me that any firing of Mueller, absent any glaring malfeasance on Mueller’s part, would be challenged in court within microseconds. What would Trump do then? Try to fire all the judges? Send the military to court to “change their minds”? Claim that courts cannot touch him? I fear we face scary times. If Trump somehow manages to come out on top, on all this, then we will then be a country of “Anything I say, goes.” I wonder if he would try to cancel the November elections if a Democratic sweep seems in the offing.

    1. No, he’s not a tenured and protected employee. He is an at will employee.

    2. Agree. If he fires Mueller without cause, it will end up at SCOTUS. Trump will test every single institution in his quest to destroy them.

      From the start of his campaign, it was clear that he was an authoritarian dictator type, one who would turn the country into a dictatorship if the institutions didn’t hold.

      2. Regardless of law, Clarence Thomas will vote with Trump.
        Scalia wanted to scuttle all voter protection.

    3. The President has the constitutional authority to fire anyone in the executive branch. That opinion has been upheld by the Supreme Court. He doesn’t need to provide a reason.

      “Anything I say, goes.”

      When it comes to firing persons working in the executive branch, that statement is true and I believe necessary.

        1. No, your problem is you don’t know the law. The President has the constitutional right to do so.

    4. Again a string of false premises promising apocolypse now after describing the previous eight year when the military did act to uphold it’s Constitutional obligation without firing one shot. False premises end in faulty conclusions andn that attempt didn’t even serve to provide a cover for attempting to transfer the wrong from then to the future.

  12. Sessions, Rosenstein, Mueller, and McGahn: the evil Democratic cabal running the deep state from their fortress in the belly of Mt. Doom. Strap on your tin foil hats patriots, we need to take them down for God’s annoited, our Dear Leader, President and stable genius Donald Trump!!! Who’s with me??!!

    2. I thought McGahn was a Republican. How did he get drafted into the “evil Democratic cabal”?

      1. In the words of the great Foghorn Leghorn, “I say it’s a joke son, get it?”

      2. The “cabal” consists entirely of Republicans.

        It doesn’t make sense but so little of what emenates from the looney right wing makes sense these days.

        Most of these people were birthers, they’re nuttier than squirrel scat

      3. False Premise one. “I thought.” False Premise “Was he a Republican … or a RINO?? The third Premise however is correct

  13. Alan Dershowitz really put Jonathan Turley and others of his ilk in place with this comment:

    “If this were Hillary Clinton being investigated and they went into her lawyer’s office, the ACLU would be on every television station in America, jumping up and down . . . The deafening silence from the ACLU and civil libertarians about the intrusion into the lawyer-client confidentiality is really appalling.”–Alan Dershowitz

    Get it, Mr. Turley? You’re just a leftist ideologue pretending to be a civil libertarian. Dershowitz has got your number!

    1. They had search warrants and a rigorous process . Stop pretending that they just broke into Cohen’s office for no reason.

      There is a crime fraud exception to attorney client privilege.

      1. No criminal finding would convince Adamo that Putin’s guy in the Whitehouse and his inner circle should be prevented from doing what they want to do.

  14. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/04/10/top-ny-prosecutor-geoffrey-berman-trump-appointee-recused-michael-cohen-inquiry/502367002/

    If this is true, this was cooked up by Rosenstein, staff attorneys in the Southern District office (appointed by Preet Bharara), and this nameless federal magistrate.

    https://www.google.com/search?q=joe+kenda+my+my+my&client=firefox-b-1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGvOKZ7bDaAhXIVN8KHZF7ADAQ_AUICygC&biw=1303&bih=675#imgrc=VpkjIZ2bDxHmMM:

  15. Ann Coulter has two noteworthy insights:

    “✔ @AnnCoulter

    “Mueller is DYING to get fired. Then he’ll be a martyr! A hero! Otherwise, he’s just a loser who couldn’t find any crimes by Trump.
    11:16 PM – Apr 9, 2018”

    And:

    “The worst thing @realDonaldTrump could do is allow himself to be manipulated by the Cohen raid into an attack on Syria. Then they’ll never stop.
    12:38 AM – Apr 10, 2018”

    http://dailycaller.com/2018/04/10/ann-coulter-trump-mueller/

    1. Ken Rogers,..
      – Ann Coulter may or may not be right.
      There might be the same kind of reaction that accompanied the “Saturday Night Massacre”, when Nixon’s firing of the DOJ officials ( and Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox) was almost universally condemned.
      But this isn’t 1973, and Mueller isn’t Archibald Cox.
      Archibald Cox didn’t conduct no-knock raids against targets of his investigation.
      He didn’t raid the offices of Nixon’s lawyer.
      He didn’t have a close relationship with a key figure at odds with the president.
      Half of the country didn’t question Cox’s objectivity.
      So the public reaction, IF Trump fires Rosenstein/ Sessions/ Mueller ( or any combination of the three) might not play out the way that Coulter thinks it would.

      1. fyi- half the nation doesn’t question Mueller’s objectivity, not even Republican legislators do (with the occasional exception like Rohrbacher).

      2. @Tom Nash April 10, 2018 at 11:07 PM
        “Ken Rogers,..
        “– Ann Coulter may or may not be right.”

        “So the public reaction, IF Trump fires Rosenstein/ Sessions/ Mueller ( or any combination of the three) might not play out the way that Coulter thinks it would.”
        _________________

        What are you talking about? Coulter didn’t say anything about a “public reaction” to anything.

        She said that Mueller is “DYING” to be fired, so that politically motivated “loser” can save face and play the martyr, and that Trump shouldn’t allow himself to be manipulated into an attack on Syria.

        Inasmuch as Mueller hasn’t come up with anything on Trump after all this time and money spent, Coulter’s likely right about his welcoming being fired, and she’s definitely right to suggest that the worst thing Trump can do is be manipulated into a military attack on Syria, whether because of the raid on his attorney’s home and office or because Trump “saw some [more] pictures.”

  16. Trump is not yet a dictator, merely a wanna be.
    He, and his minions, are bound by the same laws as every other American, subject to the same consequences when they
    break them.

    God Bless America and the wisdom of our Founding Fathers.

    2. @wildbill99 April 10, 2018 at 5:10 PM
      “Trump is not yet a dictator, merely a wanna be. He, and his minions, are bound by the same laws as every other American, subject to the same consequences when they break them.

      “God Bless America and the wisdom of our Founding Fathers.”
      _______________

      Although I fully acknowledge Trump’s pronounced authoritarian tendencies, investigating him extra-constitutionally, as Rosenstein and Mueller are doing, hardly honors the “wisdom of our Founding Fathers.”

      The Appointments Clause of the Constitution requires Mueller, as an appointed special counsel, to limit his investigation to what AG Sessions recused himself from:

      “If we follow that argument [that Sessions recused himself only from the Russia-Trump Campaign collusion inquiry], that would mean Sessions himself has exclusive authority [as Attorney General] to appoint a special counsel for non-collusion charges, and Sessions has taken no such action. [Emphasis added]

      “Sessions himself should make that clear to Mueller, rather than await court resolution. Doing so would remove three of the four areas of inquiry from Mueller’s requested interview with President Trump.

      “Sessions formally notifying Mueller that he does not have authority to act outside of campaign-related cases and cases related to obstruction of Mueller’s investigation would be doing what the Constitution compels: enforcing the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.

      “Additionally, Sessions notifying Mueller that he does not have authority to act outside of campaign-related cases would be exercising Sessions’ court-recognized Constitutional obligation to ‘direct and supervise litigation’ conducted by the Department of Justice.”

      https://lawandcrime.com/opinion/constitution-jeff-sessions-dismiss-robert-mueller-non-campaign-cases/

      This provision, wisely included in the Constitution, prevents an appointed prosecutor from becoming a loose legal cannon exercising illegitimately wide-ranging power to destroy the finances, reputations, and/or freedom of people whose conduct falls outside his limited purview.

      1. An interesting theory on the legal scope of Mueller’s investigation.

        When a Judge somewhere endorses your theory please get back to me.

    4. Except his main supporters are independent self governing citizens who hired him to do exactly what he is doing. destroy the enemies of the Republic.

  17. Are Putin’s and Xi’s attorney’s offices and homes ever raided?

    Are coups d’etat legal in China and Russia?

  18. Robert Mueller is Strzok, Page, McCabe, Comey and Rosenstein’s “insurance policy.”

    “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office for that there’s no way he gets elected—but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40 …”

    – Peter Strzok to Lisa Page

  20. So many attempts to smoke-screen the U.S. / Israeli illegal wars and mass murders

    The Zionist Nazis of the United States & Israeli governments will be
    CONVICTED OF WAR CRIMES
    as the German Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II

    Who will be in the dock?

    2. Kind of talking out of both sides of your mutliple mouths at one time ….Who would ever take you seriously?

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