Thread: Trump's friend Christopher Ruddy says President 'considering' firing Mueller

Trump's friend Christopher Ruddy says President 'considering' firing Mueller

By Saba Hamedy and Jim Acosta, CNN
Updated 10:25 PM ET, Mon June 12, 2017

Washington (CNN)One of President Donald Trump's friends said Monday he believes the President is considering dismissing special counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed to lead the FBI investigation into Russia's potential ties to the 2016 election.

"I think he's considering perhaps terminating the special counsel," Christopher Ruddy -- who was at the White House Monday -- told PBS' Judy Woodruff on "PBS NewsHour." "I think he's weighing that option."

A source close to the President said Trump is being counseled to steer clear of such a dramatic move like firing the special counsel.

"He is being advised by many people not to do it," the source said.

However, a White House official said Ruddy did not speak to the President about potentially terminating Mueller.
And deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said simply: "Chris speaks for himself."

Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax Media, based his Mueller comment on a television interview with one of Trump's lawyers. When asked about the interview by CNN, Ruddy said: "My quote is accurate."

He told Woodruff he thinks firing Mueller "would be a very significant mistake, even though I don't think there's a justification ... for a special counsel."

"Chris speaks for himself," said Sarah Huckabee Sanders, deputy White House press secretary.

Mueller was appointed FBI Director by President George W. Bush in 2001 and served until 2013, when Comey took over as head.

Since being appointed special counsel in May, he has built a team of formidable legal minds who've worked on everything from Watergate to Enron. He has long been widely respected by many in Washington from both sides of the aisle, with many lawmakers praising Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein's pick.

Still not everyone is a fan.

Earlier this week, Newt Gingrich reportedly told radio host John Catsimatidis that Congress should "abolish the independent counsel."

"I think Congress should now intervene and they should abolish the independent counsel," the former House speaker said. "Because Comey makes so clear that it's the poison fruit of a deliberate manipulation by the FBI director leaking to The New York Times, deliberately set up this particular situation. It's very sick."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, disputed that report.

"I don't think Newt said that," Graham told reporters. "I think it'd be a disaster. There's no reason to fire Mueller. What had he done to be fired?"

After news of Ruddy's interview surfaced on the web, Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, echoed that sentiment on Twitter.

"If President fired Bob Mueller, Congress would immediately re-establish independent counsel and appoint Bob Mueller," the California lawmaker tweeted. "Don't waste our time."

Schiff later told CNN's Anderson Cooper he wouldn't be surprised if Trump was considering ousting Mueller.

"You have to hope that common sense would prevail," Schiff said. "But it wouldn't surprise me at all, even though it would be absolutely astonishing were he(Trump) to entertain this. The echoes of Watergate are getting louder and louder."

CNN's Kevin Liptak, Jeremy Diamond and Ashley Killough contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/12/politi...use/index.html

If it turns out that the Trump Tower was wiretapped by Comey (Comey is the only one who said he couldn't find any evidence that the Trump Tower was wiretapped), that Comey is the "leaker" of all the INTEL leaks, that Comey used FBI money to hire Steele to create the Fake Dossier on Trump, had it delivered to John McCain, and then leaked it to BuzzFeed after McCain dutifully brought it to the FBI, what would Mueller do? Would Mueller prosecute Comey or bury it?

I thought the Special Counsel was a good idea at first, until I found out about the relationship between Mueller and Comey. After that, it seemed a really really bad idea. I just don't understand how Rob Rosenstein wouldn't know that or if he did, why he didn't think it mattered.

According to what I heard during the Sessions interview today, Trump cannot fire Mueller, only the assistant AG can do that.

I'm not sure about that. They refer to DOJ regulations which govern the DOJ. I seriously doubt that DOJ regulations govern the President of the United States, they govern DOJ employees.

Decided to do some research and here it is:

Since 1999

Since the expiration of the independent counsel statute in 1999, there is no federal law governing the appointment of a special prosecutor, as was the case until 1978. With the law's expiration in 1999, the Justice Department, under Attorney General Reno, promulgated procedural regulations governing the appointment of special counsels.

In 1999 these regulations were used that year by Reno to appoint John Danforth special counsel to investigate the FBI's handling of the Waco siege.[16]

In 2003 during the George W Bush administration, Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed special counsel to investigate the Plame affair by Deputy Attorney General James Comey; after the recusal of Attorney General John Ashcroft.

On May 17, 2017, former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein; after the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.[17]

Legal authority

The legal authority under which special prosecutors are appointed has changed over the years.

In the case of the Teapot Dome investigation, Congress passed a special joint resolution requiring the appointment of a special counsel for the case, and requiring confirmation of the special counsels by the Senate, similarly to a cabinet appointment.[10] This process was unique in the history of federal special prosecutors.

Special prosecutors have also been appointed under special one-time regulations issued by the attorney general. This was the case, for example, for the Watergate special prosecutors.[18]

Passed partly in response to the events of Watergate, the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 created a statutory basis for the appointment of special prosecutors, and specifically restricted the authority of the president or attorney general, for example, to fire the independent counsel once appointed. The independent counsel provisions of the law were in effect during the periods 1978–1992 and 1994–1999.

With the expiration of the independent counsel authority in 1999, the Department of Justice under Attorney General Janet Reno promulgated regulations for the future appointment of special counsels. As of 2017, these regulations remain in effect as 28 CFR section 600.[6] While the regulations place limits on the authority of the attorney general, for example to fire the special counsel once appointed, they are internal Department of Justice regulations without an underlying statutory basis. It is thus unclear whether the limits these regulations place on the attorney general would prove binding in practice.

The existence of a law or regulations specifying one process to appoint a special prosecutor does not preclude the attorney general (or acting attorney general) from using their inherent authority to appoint a special prosecutor by other means, as has happened twice. Despite the passage of the Ethics in Government Act the previous year, Paul Curran was appointed to investigate Jimmy Carter's peanut business in 1979 under the attorney general's inherent authority (and was selected by him rather than by a three-judge panel as under the law), ostensibly because the alleged wrongdoing preceded the passage of the act.[8] Patrick Fitzgerald's appointment as special counsel in 2003 was specifically not made under the 28 CFR 600 regulation.[19] The special counsel regulations specify that a special counsel must be a lawyer from outside the US government, while Fitzgerald was already a federal prosecutor at the time of his appointment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_prosecutor

So everything Rosenstein said in his hearing applies to him as a DOJ employee operating under DOJ "promulgated regulations" established by Janet Reno (you knw the woman that gave the order to kill 90 innocent people in Waco, Texas.

Anything Sessions said also only applies to him because again, he is an employee of the US DOJ.

Both can fire Mueller for good cause.

The President however can fire the Special Counsel with or without good cause for any reason or no reason same as he could fire the scum bag Comey who manipulated Rosenstein into the appointment of a Special Counsel for any reason or no reason.

While the President made clear today that he has no intention to fire Mueller, he most certainly has the authority and power to do so whenever he feels he should be fired.

I think everyone even most Democrat voters realize now that Comey aint' right, there's something very wrong with him, and the firing while controversial and causing our dear President a lot of heat, incoming and back-lash, the President is a courageous person and will take it all for US.

Finding out today that Trump actually interviewed Mueller for FBI Director who turns out to be best friends with Comey, something Trump probably didn't know, and then the next day Rosenstein appointed Mueller Special Counsel.

That's really strange unless the real reason for the Special Counsel is to investigate Comey and the rogue leakers in the FBI.

President Trump Can’t Just Fire Robert Mueller

By PETER M. SHANEJUNE 13, 2017
Continue reading the main storyPhoto

Robert Mueller testifying at a hearing in 2013. CreditTom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images

The latest attention-grabbing trial balloon to be floated by a White House staffer or apparent surrogate for President Trump is the suggestion by Christopher Ruddy, a longtime friend of the president, that Mr. Trump is “considering, perhaps, terminating” Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel appointed to investigate the Trump campaign’s links to Russia.

President Trump cannot legally do so.

Authority to appoint Mr. Mueller landed with Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself last March from the Russia probe. In appointing special counsel, Mr. Rosenstein was exercising authority that Congress had given the Justice Department by statute. The Justice Department, in turn, issued implementing regulations in 1999 specifically to govern such appointments. Those rules provide that a special counsel is appropriate when a criminal investigation is warranted but presents a conflict of interest for the department.

Under these rules, only the attorney general — or, in this case, the deputy attorney general — may remove a special counsel. He may do so only “for misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest or for other good cause.”

Because the deputy attorney general serves at the pleasure of the president, Mr. Trump may direct Mr. Rosenstein to fire Mr. Mueller. Although Mr. Rosenstein has cautiously avoided any statement more definitive than insisting he would not dismiss the special counsel except for good cause, he has added that he does not anticipate such a scenario. Should Mr. Rosenstein refuse a dismissal order, then Mr. Trump, like President Richard M. Nixon, could fire however many officials it takes to get someone in place willing to execute the discharge. That is not likely to be easy because there is no reason at this point to suspect that Mr. Mueller has done anything that would warrant his dismissal for “good cause,” and it is doubtful there are many Justice Department officials who would rush to act unlawfully.

Following the Saturday Night Massacre — the now-infamous dismissal of the special prosecutor Archibald Cox by Robert H. Bork, then the acting attorney general — several members of Congress sued in federal court because the Cox firing made it more difficult to perform their duty in deciding whether to proceed with a Nixon impeachment.
Continue reading the main story

Judge Gerhard A. Gesell, one of the most highly regarded federal trial judges of the last century, held that the firing of the special prosecutor was unlawful because it violated Justice Department regulations governing Mr. Cox’s office. He observed that the attorney general chose to “limit his own authority” by specifying the narrow circumstances under which Mr. Cox could be fired. “It is settled beyond dispute,” Judge Gesell wrote, “that under such circumstances an agency regulation has the force and effect of law, and is binding upon the body that issues it.” What was true for Mr. Bork would also be true for the deputy attorney general now.

To be sure, there are at least some legal scholars who believe the president is constitutionally entitled to take personal charge of implementing all statutes. Under “unitary executive” theory, the president can simply seize whatever administrative authority Congress gives anyone in the executive branch. This would mean that whatever authority Congress gives the attorney general to appoint or fire a special counsel would be authority the president could carry out himself.

That position, however, is constitutional nonsense. Early attorneys general representing presidents as different in their politics as John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson agreed that presidents could not simply assume tasks that Congress had assigned specifically to other administrative officers. Moreover, the Supreme Court has held repeatedly that agencies may not discharge their officers in a manner that violates their own regulations. It follows that Mr. Trump lacks authority to fire Mr. Mueller under current rules, and he cannot personally impose new regulations to give himself that power.
156COMMENTS
Broadcasting that Mr. Trump is “considering” some dramatic action has become a familiar, if tiresome, tactic. Whether he follows through, as he did in withdrawing from the Paris climate accords, or not, as in failing to use executive privilege to shortcut congressional testimony by James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, such grandstanding has political uses. A combination of suspense and outrage can distract from whatever congressional Republicans are doing, sap energy from political opponents and keep the glare of public attention where the president likes it best — on himself.

In this case, however, it ought to be clear that what Mr. Trump may be “considering” is beyond his powers. Following through, as with the Saturday Night Massacre, would only provide fodder for his own removal.

Peter M. Shane teaches constitutional and administrative law at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/o...ller.html?_r=0

I'm confident that internal DOJ regulations don't apply to the powers or authority of the President of the United States.