Harry Ola wrote:Trump cannot actually fire Mueller. He needs the Deputy Attorney General to do that (Rod Rosenstein). It seems he regularly contemplates firing Rosenstein, but this could set up the equivalent of Nixon's Saturday night massacre.
Bottom line Trump's options are not good for stopping these investigations and they are a lot worse than they were a week ago. Mueller passed on information to New York (SDNY) for the raid on Cohen's office (Rosenstein approved this). Trump has no authority to stop the investigation there and importantly has no pardon power over state crimes.
Isn't it the case though that the current (interim) US attorney for the SDNY, Geoffrey Berman, who, I believe, is currently now in charge of this part of the investigation, could be out the door in a matter of a couple of weeks. I know he was a Trump pick initially, but is Trump really going to want to keep him in the job after what's happened. Surely, he'll have him replaced now with some toady who'll do their utmost to, at the very least, limit Trump's legal jeopardy.