Rachel Maddow Explains The 4 Ways Trump Could Shut Down The Special Counsel

Rachel Maddow listed four ways that Trump could legally get rid of the special counsel investigating him, and her list perfectly sums up why Democrats are calling for a special prosecutor or independent commission.

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Maddow explained, “The President could order the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire Robert Mueller. If the Deputy Attorney General refused, the President could fire him. The President could order the Deputy Attorney General to restrict the scope of the Mueller investigation. If the Deputy Attorney General refused to do that, the President could fire him for that. The President could order the Deputy Attorney General to impede the resources that Mueller needs for his investigation, and again, if the Deputy AG refused to do that, the President could fire him…There is also at least one nuclear option if the President really wanted to kill this thing. The regulations that make it possible to have a special counsel are Justice Department regulations, not a law passed by Congress, Justice Department regulations. Trump could just order the Justice Department to rescind those regulations, so there’s no longer any such thing as a special counsel within the Department of Justice.”

What Maddow explained is why Democrats aren’t satisfied with the special counsel. The special counsel is still indirectly under the control of Donald Trump. There are legal ways that Trump could rid of the special counsel, and as this president has already demonstrated, he will fire anyone who gets too close to the truth in the Russia scandal.

The only way to a get a truly independent investigation of the potential Trump and Russia collusion is to elect a Democratic Congress in 2018. Anything less isn’t really an independent investigation.