,
20 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
Thread on tmrw & Independence of Mueller. 1. Whatever Mueller does tmrw, people will ask what Mueller’s powers are and if he can be removed.
2.Mueller was appointed by Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein under the 1999 Special Counsel Regs. My first impt task at DOJ was to draft those regs.
3. I wrote in detail about this here: washingtonpost.com/posteverything…
4. Basic thing is Mueller has day-to-day independence, but Rosenstein can shut him down “for any investigative or prosecutorial step” that
5. is “so inappropriate or unwarranted under established Departmental practices that it should not be pursued.”
6. Sessions can’t do anything as he is recused. So it falls to Rosenstein under the regs. (Opening lines of reg anticipated conflicted AG)
7. The idea of regs is to balance accountability & independence
8. So if Rosenstein shuts Mueller down in any way he must report that to Congress (incl minority party, explicit in regs).
9. But here’s where the Constitution complicates things.
10. Because our Founders put the President in charge of the prosecution power in Article II, Trump can possibly fire Mueller directly, or
11. Trump can order Rosenstein to fire Mueller. Might be a 2-step thing.
12. Having the constl power to do something doesn’t make it wise. Trump could constitutionally nuke England tmrw, that would be stupid.
13.(And citizens have constl rights to burn the flag, or engage in really horrendous speech, but it doesn’t make it wise either.)
14. So anyone who dwells on Trump’s constl power to fire Mueller is asking the wrong Q.
15. It’s as much of a distraction, as, say, Clinton emails or the World Series. Just plainly irrelevant.
16. As Mueller begins to bring indictments, the focus should be on the indictments, not innuendo about other stuff.
17. If Trump tries to cut off the Mueller investigation, it will create a full-blown constitutional crisis.
18. Only Nixon tried to do something like that. (It didn’t turn out too well for him.)
19. If Trump feels the indictments are weak or whatever, those args can be made in court, subject to the crucible of trial.
20. Indeed, as someone once said, SEE YOU IN COURT!
The End.
The End.
