1. Why do Trump's legal advisers think he can get away with firing Rod Rosenstein? Because they know the pro-Trump media apparatus, led by Fox News, will support him. mediamatters.org/blog/2018/04/1… 
2. They made the case pretty explicitly in this CNN.com article: cnn.com/2018/04/10/pol… pbs.twimg.com/media/DadV-1xW…
3. The American public isn't convinced the FBI "is tainted." But Trump's base is -- a February poll found that 73 percent of Republicans agreed that “members of the FBI and Department of Justice are working to delegitimize Trump through politically motivated investigations.”
4. That's the result of a concerted, nearly year-long effort by Trump, his lawyers, congressional Republicans, and Fox News et al to smear everyone involved in the Mueller probe.
5. Note that the president’s pitch is a fundamentally radical, authoritarian one. He claims that the purpose of law enforcement is to protect him and punish his enemies and if it fails to do this job, he can remove whomever he wants to fix that problem.
6. He needs a lot of validators making that same pitch in order to keep his supporters on board. And that's where Fox plays a key role.
7. Fox hosts like Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs, and the Fox & Friends crew regularly assail Rosenstein, Mueller, Comey, etc. They constantly suggest that the Russia probe is illegitimate and that the investigators are the ones who committed the real crimes.
8. They constantly trot out conservative lawyers like Gregg Jarrett and reporters like John Solomon and Sara Carter, who basically launder congressional GOP talking points about the probe. And they provide a ready platform for and Republican congressman with a conspiracy theory.
9. Fox and other pro-Trump media, Republican congressional investigators, the president, and the president’s lawyers are all playing off each other’s efforts. When their individual conspiracy theories collapse, the parties involved simply move on to the next one.
10. Firing Rosenstein in order to curtail Mueller's investigation would be a dangerous step down an authoritarian path. But Trump and his legal advisers know that at least they'll still have Fox's propaganda apparatus behind them. And that might be enough. #fin
