David Ignatius: Trump should leave Mueller in place

Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law professor who headed the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel during the George W. Bush administration, offered a careful assessment of the consequences of a Mueller firing early Tuesday on the Lawfare blog. Justice Department regulations specify that a special counsel can only be removed for "misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or for other good cause", and that the "specific reason" must be spelled out in writing.

Mueller was appointed by US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US polls.

Laura Ingraham appeared on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning to deride reports from Newsmax CEO and Trump confidante Chris Ruddy that the president is considering terminating special counsel Robert Mueller. I personally think it would be a significant mistake'.

And with Attorney General Jeff Sessions having recused himself from all Russia-related matters, that responsibility would fall on Rosenstein, who said he is "confident" Mueller "has full independence" to conduct the investigation.

In a major story, The New York Times claimed that Trump was angered by reports that Mueller was close to fired Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey and entertained the idea of firing the special counsel. Other Trump allies oppose the investigation through a thread of interlinked objections: that Meuller's probe is unnecessary, that he is hiring an assemblage of biased attorneys who have donated to the Democrats in the past, and that his close relationship with Comey is compromising.

Gingrich is correct that there is a certain partisan tilt to the team of top-notch investigators being assembled by the ex-FBI director: Jeannie Rhee, Michael Dreeben, Andrew Weissmann and James Quarles are renowned in their fields and have made repeated donations to Democrats.

In 1973, there was such a firestorm following Nixon's move against Cox that the White House was forced to appoint another special prosecutor, Texas attorney Leon Jaworski.

Later during the hearing, he said in response to a question from another senator, "If there were good cause [to fire Mueller] I would consider it. If there were not good cause, it would not matter to me what anybody said", he said.

First, in response to questioning from Sen.

"Director Comey's testimony once again proved that there was no obstruction" of the Russian Federation investigations, Ruddy said, adding the president and his top aides felt that some people in Washington were trying to undermine Trump's agenda by focusing on the investigations. Neal Katyal spelled out three ways to thwart this kind of criminal probe in a Washington Post piece titled, "Trump or Congress can still block Robert Mueller". "Could we have as many pro-Trump lawyers as we have anti-Trump lawyers?"

Schiff told CNN's Anderson Cooper if Mueller was ousted, Congress would have to re-establish the Independent Counsel Act that expired following the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. "I don't think he's really pondering it", Rep. Adam Kinzinger said. News of that hire and others prompted former acting USA solicitor general Neal Katyal to tell CNN, "You don't bring Michael Dreeben onto something ordinary..." They will also ask about his decision to recuse from an investigation into possible ties between Moscow and associates of President Donald Trump. "It is certainly theoretically possible that the attorney general could fire him, but that's the only person who has authority to fire him".