Trump: No, I'm not thinking of firing Mueller

As far as I can tell, this rumor was invented out of whole cloth. One who gave voice to it was Democrat Congresswoman Jackie Speier, who claimed to have heard that Trump was not only going to fire Mueller, but was going to do it on a very specific day - Friday. The more that's come out the past few days about rottenness at the FBI and within the Mueller investigative team, the more we start hearing media speculation that Trump is getting ready to fire Mueller. That would seem to be monumentally counterproductive, since it looks more and more like there's not going to be anything tying Trump to "collusion with Russia," and the best possible outcome would be for Mueller to finish his investigation and admit that. Does Mueller deserve to be fired? I'd say yes. But it benefits Trump more to let him wrap this up.

So where did the talk of Trump firing Mueller come from? Not, apparently, from the mind of Trump:

President Donald Trump, when asked on Sunday if he was considering firing U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller, told reporters, “No. I‘m not.” Democratic lawmakers in recent days have expressed concern that Trump might fire Mueller, who is investigating allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and whether Trump or anyone on his team colluded with Moscow. Russia denies meddling in the election and Trump has denied any collusion.

I realize some of you will declare, "Trump is lying!" Because you say that no matter what comes out of Trump's mouth. But Trump wouldn't do himself any good to lie about this and then go ahead and do it. And if he really was thinking about firing Mueller, he wouldn't need to deny it. It's possible Trump was thinking about it and some of his advisors persuaded him that would not be in his best interests for all the reasons we discussed earlier. But my hunch is that the Mueller-is-about-to-be-fired rumors were nonsense made up by Democrats. Why make up such a rumor? Maybe to goad Trump into actually doing it, which would cast doubt on his innocence in the whole collusion thing just as the publicly known facts are starting to indicate he'll be exonerated. Trump is so impulsive, they figure, that starting the rumor and then lecturing him that he'd better not, they might be able to get him to do it.

---

And then hello constitutional crisis. Sounds to me like Trump is a lot less impulsive than his reputation suggests he is. I think he absolutely believes Mueller's investigation is an abusive fishing expedition with no underlying justification, and that it's wasting everyone's time. And I think it's all those things. But Trump knows the only way to prove Mueller's got nothing is to call his bluff and give him the chance to show what he has got, if anything. So no, Mueller is not going to be fired, and it's an indication of the direction this is taking that most Republicans seem pretty happy about that. They suspect that Mueller's ultimate conclusion will reflect badly on Mueller, the FBI, the media and the Democrats - and not on Donald Trump.