Firing Mueller Is Only the First Step

I agree with much of what my friend and colleague Richard Pierce has written in his essay, “The Easy Path to Firing Mueller,” but I partially dissent because Pierce, probably like President Donald Trump, has not figured out what comes next. Given the manner in which the President has reached many decisions, the firing is likely to come when special counsel Robert Mueller steps over an unknowable line that the President has drawn, and the President decides that he has gone too far. When President Richard Nixon in 1973 ordered the firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox—who had been appointed to investigate the Watergate break-in—Cox chose not to fight the President. But Ralph Nader and several members of Congress brought suit and won a declaratory judgment from U.S. District Judge Gerhard Gesell. Judge Gesell held that Cox’s firing in the Saturday Night Massacre was unlawful because the applicable regulation authorizing the appointment of a…

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