Donald Trump is publicly considering firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the person leading the Department of Justice investigation of possible criminal actions by Donald Trump and members of his presidential campaign, as well as the efforts to conceal those activities.
It's also possible that, rather than firing Mueller, Trump will obstruct Mueller's investigation by issuing blanket pardons of key figures being investigated, firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (the person overseeing Mueller), or taking other actions to prevent the investigation from being conducted freely.
Any one of these actions would create a constitutional crisis for our country. It would demand an immediate and unequivocal response to show that we will not tolerate abuse of power from Donald Trump.
Our response in the hours following a power grab will dictate what happens next and whether Congress—the only body with the constitutional power and obligation to rein Trump in from his rampage—will do anything to stand up to him.
That's why we're preparing to hold emergency "Nobody is Above the Law" rallies around the country, in the event they are needed.
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RayPinchiks on March 15th, 2018 at 16:40 UTC »
Honest question because I’m out of the loop. What’s happened that we think Sessions is about to be fired?
murkar on March 15th, 2018 at 16:39 UTC »
For those that have not been keeping a close eye on this, a quick summary: Trump has floated the idea to fire Jeff Sessions recently [1], as reported first by Vanity Fair. In addition, Sessions is overseeing the possible firing of Andrew McCabe [2].
Trump's idea is reportedly to replace Sessions with Scott Pruitt [3] [4]. Thus Trump can install a crony that will fire Mueller (or worse - stay silent and not agree to publicly release Mueller's recommendation to impeach at the conclusion of the investigation), since Pruitt won't be recused from the investigation like Sessions is. He will take Sessions' place and resume as acting AG over the investigation instead of Rod Rosenstein (deputy AG, who appointed Mueller after Sessions' recusal [5] ). In addition, Trump has pushed for the removal of Andrew McCabe (deputy director of the FBI) publicly [6] [7], and may be doing so privately to Sessions as well. McCabe is near retirement and despite the FBI's internal recommendation to remove him [8], firing him at this point would be interpreted by the special counsel as Trump punishing him for his role in the Clinton investigation by jeopardizing his pension - especially consider trump has already made aggressive verbal communications to punish McCabe for his disloyalty in the past [9].
So, Jeff Sessions is truly in a pickle. There are two options for him: (1) Fire McCabe, which builds more evidence for Mueller's Obstruction case against Trump and implicates sessions himself in witness tampering and obstruction (since he cannot fire McCabe, who is a witness in Mueller's probe, while being publicly recused from that investigation), or (2) don't fire McCabe, and risk getting fired himself and triggering this shitstorm. If Trump fires Sessions immediately after his decision on McCabe without delay, that also builds very strong evidence for Mueller that Trump fired sessions because he refused to obstruct justice or engage in witness tampering.
However, very importantly, Mueller is reportedly nearly finished with the obstruction portion of his case [10], but is holding off on filing those charges strategically [11] so he can obtain more evidence in the probe (and possibly flip other witnesses or pursue other peripheral charges like money laundering etc. either against Trump or others). It's likely that Mueller has more than enough evidence to recommend an indictment of Trump for obstruction of justice (and witness tampering) right now, and is waiting as long as he can before filing anything against Trump or unsealing any key indictments against other top-level targets of the investigation.
So - the minute Trump fires Sessions, you can expect a Mueller shitstorm to drop in the time between when Sessions is fired and when Pruitt (or whoever Trump ultimately chooses) is sworn in, because he will be out of time to keep collecting more information for his probe (i.e. IF Trump does fire Sessions, it will likely be a "now or never" moment for Mueller).
EDIT: Side note, I fully expect that whoever Trump appoints to replace Sessions will fire Mueller rather than quietly quashing a recommendation to impeach at the end of the probe - because whether he chooses Scott Pruitt or not, one of his conditions for giving them the position will be that they end the special counsel investigation. This is his Modus Operandi - give positions only out to those who give him unquestioning loyalty, even when what he's asking them to do is incredibly stupid.
Edit 2: Thanks to the guy who pointed out - Pruitt would need to be confirmed as AG, and the vanity fair article was updated to reflect this. However my point I think still stands regardless: the name of who he chooses to appoint makes no difference, Trumps' Modus Operandi is to demand absolute loyalty - so whoever he picks, he's likely to ask them if they will end the special counsel investigation before giving them the position.
R0ndras on March 15th, 2018 at 16:25 UTC »
I just don't understand how someone being investigated can fire the guy that is investigating him... seems absurd.