The poison fruit
Trump is thinking about firing the special counsel. Well of course he is, he’s Trump. But everyone around him is advising him not to. That means he will.
Newt Gingrich agrees with Trump though.
“I think Congress should now intervene and they should abolish the independent counsel,” the former House speaker said. “Because Comey makes so clear that it’s the poison fruit of a deliberate manipulation by the FBI director leaking to The New York Times, deliberately set up this particular situation. It’s very sick.”
Yeah, boy, that crazy Commie weirdo flake FBI director, that’s scary stuff man.
Adam Schiff urges time-thrift.
If President fired Bob Mueller, Congress would immediately re-establish independent counsel and appoint Bob Mueller. Don't waste our time.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) June 12, 2017
Schiff later told CNN’s Anderson Cooper he wouldn’t be surprised if Trump was considering ousting Mueller.
“You have to hope that common sense would prevail,” Schiff said. “But it wouldn’t surprise me at all, even though it would be absolutely astonishing were he (Trump) to entertain this. The echoes of Watergate are getting louder and louder.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan, however, did say he would be “surprised” if Trump fired Mueller.
“I think he should let Bob Mueller do his job, do his job independently, and do his job quickly, because I think that that’s what he would want to have happen,” Ryan told conservative commentator Guy Benson.
Unless of course he doesn’t want Mueller to find what there is to find.
If he’s not guilty as hell he sure doesn’t know how to defray suspicion.
I was under the impression that the special counsel was already immune to being fired by Trump, instead requiring a much more elaborate procedure…?
Holmes,
Not really. Trump can fire Mueller indirectly (meaning he orders the appropriate DOJ official to fire him), though there is supposed to be cause. And of course the DOJ official (right now, Rosenstein) can refuse, in which case…. it’s complicated. There’s also an argument that he can fire him directly, which… ah, this article explains it well.
Honestly, I genuinely believe Trump had no idea that Flynn was so deeply entrenched with the Russians. The problems are more subtle than that–he has no idea what any of his subordinates are actually doing with the clout their proximity to His Orangeness is giving them, and he doesn’t care. He’s all about backing his cronies (unless they fail him in some specific way that manages to invoke his ire, of course).
So Trump may very well have had nothing to do with Flynn and the Russians playing footsie as they read Hillary’s staff emails. But he immediately went into “protect my guy” mode, with a speed that would’ve made a Chicago patronage politician blush at the indecency of it.
Freemage, there was something during Nixon called “plausible deniability”. Limit just what the president knows, be vague, so he can actually deny things truthfully when the shit hits the fan. I suspect to some extent that’s what’s happening here, except (1) it didn’t work for Nixon; and (2) Donald is orders of magnitude less competent and intelligent than Nixon.