Quote:
Originally Posted by Dbones
Mueller can be fired at any time Trump wishes and there isn't a damn thing anyone can do about it.
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No, Trump cannot fire Mueller. Only Alan Hansen, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the United States of America, can fire Mr. Mueller.
By law. A special investigator is immune from being fired by any President. He answers only to the Attorney General. And since the Attorney General has recused himself from the investigation Mueller was commissioned to conduct, he answers only to Mr. Hansen, the Acting Assistant.
The law was written after Richard Nixon fired both his Attorney General and the Special Prosecutor (the old term) His AG hired. Richard Katzenback, the special investigator, refused to resign, and Elliot Richardson, the AG, refused to fire him.
So Nixon fired Richardson, and that began Nixon's descent into hell.
Justice must be independent to be legitimate. The Attorney General is the nation's topmost legal officer. Firing him is a violation of the Oath of Office, and that violation is an impeachable offense.
Trump cannot fire Mueller because Mueller is immune to firing, the only person in Washington who is immune. If Trump fires Sessions, he violates his Oath of Office unless he can provide a reason that Congress will agree with. Since they all take the same oath, they all face the same penalty for violating it.
That means self-preservation will take over if patriotism fails in Congress.
Trump may have a valid reason to fire Sessions; Sessions did make a lethal mistake when he did not disclose his Russian connection. But if Trump fires him, then his Acting Assistant simply moves one rung up the ladder and becomes Acting Attorney General, and is qualified to appoint his own Assistant.
And if Hansen violates his own oath and breaks the law by firing Mueller without a valid reason that Congress approves, he faces criminal prosecution and penalty.
Hansen is as clean as a whistle, has been in Washington, in the Justice Dept. a long time, and understands his responsibilities completely.
Furthermore, he knows what happened to John Mitchell, Nixon's replacement AG after Richardson was fired. John Mitchell served 3 years in a federal penitentiary for facilitating Nixon's crimes. Hansen will not do what Mitchell did. No sane person would.
Trump may not have all his faculties, but don't ever count on Congress or senior staffers being as insane as Donald Trump. They will not follow Trump down the madness of the rabbit hole that awaits at its bottom.
Trump won't last, and they all have their own careers to care for. And many are as patriotic as they are careerists. Congress has a wall that no President can crack possessing only self-preservation as a cause.
Trump is nowhere good enough a bully to push his way through that wall. He may die trying, but he will never succeed knocking a hole in it.