The scandal is not that Trump tried to fire Mueller; it's that he can't

For the record, Trump says it's fake news. Whoever told the New York Times it happened is hiding behind anonymity, because of course they are. Also for the record, Mueller deserves to be fired. His charge was to find out if the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. He has found out no such thing, and now he's doing what special counsels always do, which is to ensnare people in process crimes in lieu of any underlying crime so he can justify that any of this ever happened. Mueller is not serving the country in any sort of positive way. He's taking up time and resources in the quest for a pretext to call people criminals, when none of them would have done anything wrong in the first place if Mueller hadn't been appointed to search in vain for a crime that never happened.

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Mueller should have been gone in June. Well before June. By any objective measure of merit, Mueller would have been fired long ago. But Washington doesn't operate according to merit, so a man whose mission can't be justified by truth is now allowed to operate with no accountability, answer to no one and expand the scope of his charge in any way he feels like, for as long as he feels like. And if the only person with constitutional authority under the executive branch tries to put a stop to it, it's a "bombshell" scandal or something:

A bombshell new report says that President Trump did in fact want Robert Mueller fired, but he backed off when the White House counsel threatened to quit over the order. Trump ordered the firing of Mueller, who is the special counsel leading the investigation into his campaign’s Russia ties, in June last year, according to the New York Times. The president reportedly backed down after White House counsel Don McGahn “threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.” What’s more, Mueller recently found out about the president’s attempts to have him fired after his investigators interviewed White House officials as part of his investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice. Trump reportedly pointed to multiple conflicts of interest he thought existed regarding Mueller (including an old golf club membership dispute), but McGahn still refused to carry out the directive to fire the special counsel — and reassured White House staffers that the president would not do it himself:A bombshell new report says that President Trump did in fact want Robert Mueller fired, but he backed off when the White House counsel threatened to quit over the order.

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Trump ordered the firing of Mueller, who is the special counsel leading the investigation into his campaign’s Russia ties, in June last year, according to the New York Times. The president reportedly backed down after White House counsel Don McGahn “threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.” What’s more, Mueller recently found out about the president’s attempts to have him fired after his investigators interviewed White House officials as part of his investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice. Trump reportedly pointed to multiple conflicts of interest he thought existed regarding Mueller (including an old golf club membership dispute), but McGahn still refused to carry out the directive to fire the special counsel — and reassured White House staffers that the president would not do it himself.

Don McGahn and others in the White House don't want Mueller fired because they're afraid of the political fallout. Washington conventional wisdom says that any attempt to rein in a special counsel is the tip-off of a constitutional crisis.

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But Mueller's doing a pretty good job shredding the Constitution by continuing with this investigation. The whole basis of the Constitution is the separation of powers and mutual accountability. No one can simply operate with unlimited power and impunity in our system. Congress can make the laws but needs the executive to enforce them. The executive can make decisions but is subject to judicial review. Judges can make rulings but only based on laws Congress passes. But Robert Mueller isn't subject to any limits whatsoever. He can demand whatever he wants. He can keep looking for violations of the law for as long as he wants, regardless of whether it's related to Russia and collusion, and he can keep questioning you over and over and over again until he catches you in a perjury trap. If he turns up no serious crimes, he can just keep looking. And if anyone decides it's enough already, it's a constitutional crisis. That's the real problem here. The thinking is that the executive branch can't investigate itself, so you must have a special counsel. But no. You musn't. Congress has oversight authority over the executive branch, and that includes investigatory power and subpoena power. If someone needs to investigate the executive branch, Congress has the power to do it. There is no constitutional pretext for the special counsel, and there's no way to limit him once he's appointed. He's part of the executive branch, but Trump can't fire him. He was appointed for a specific purpose, but he doesn't have to limit himself to that purpose. And there is no time limit on how long he can seek evidence, or against whom. He can follow any trail he wants, and if turns up empty, he can just follow another one. Robert Mueller should be fired. It would be a political problem for Trump if he did it. But it's a governing disaster if he doesn't.

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