Trump fury after Cohen raids prods Hill Republicans to take sides on Mueller

The following article by James Hohmann with Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve was posted on the Washington Post website April 11, 2018:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on April 10 he doesn’t believe special counsel Robert S. Mueller III will be removed from his office. (The Washington Post)

THE BIG IDEA: 

Every time President Trump threatens to fire Bob Mueller, it gets harder for congressional Republicans to dismiss questions about why they are not protecting the special counsel.

For the better part of a year, GOP lawmakers have tried to straddle the fence — saying Mueller’s investigation should be allowed to run its course while expressing confidence that Trump wouldn’t fire him.

The president’s rage since his personal attorney Michael Cohen’s home, office and hotel room were raided on Monday has made this balancing act harder.

— This morning, Trump tweeted fresh attacks on Mueller’s probe: “I (we) are …. doing things that nobody thought possible, despite the never ending and corrupt Russia Investigation, which takes tremendous time and focus. No Collusion or Obstruction (other than I fight back), so now they do the Unthinkable, and RAID a lawyers office for information! BAD!” And White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders asserted the president’s prerogative to fire Mueller during her briefing yesterday.

— Separately, a bipartisan group of four senators also announced today that they’ve merged their legislative proposals to allow for a review process if the special counsel is fired. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) signed onto a combined bill with Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) called the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act. The measure would codify into law current regulations that say a special counsel can only be fired for “good cause.” There would then be a mechanism by which a special counsel could go to court within 10 days of getting fired to challenge whether his termination was justified. The removal would then be overturned.

“This compromise bipartisan bill helps ensure that special counsels — present or future — have the independence they need to conduct fair and impartial investigations,” Tillis said in a statement. “The integrity and independence of special counsel investigations are vital to reaffirming the American people’s confidence in our nation’s rule of law.”

— GOP congressional leaders have made clear they don’t plan to bring this legislation up for a vote on the floor. They don’t want to force rank-and-file members to take a tough vote that could put them crosswise with the president or the base voters who love him. They note that Trump would veto the bill anyway, so it would just needlessly antagonize him. They also hint that they’ve received assurances Trump won’t fire Mueller. “I haven’t seen clear indication yet that we needed to pass something to keep him from being removed, because I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said yesterday.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) also said Tuesday that it would be “suicide for the president to want, to talk about firing Mueller,” yet he has refused to schedule a hearing to consider the legislation to protect Mueller.“The less the president said on this whole thing, the better off he would be, the stronger his presidency would be,” Grassley said on the Fox Business Network.

— Meanwhile, a new group calling itself Republicans for the Rule of Law paid to run a pro-Mueller commercial on “Fox & Friends” in the D.C. media market this morning. That’s the president’s favorite show. Conservative Never Trumper Bill Kristol is a founding director. Watch the 30-second spot here:

— On the other side, many of Trump’s most fervent supporters and closest friends are ramping up public calls for the special counsel to get the ax. “The Mueller-must-go strain of commentary ballooned after Trump openly considered deposing the special counsel on Monday,” Annie Linskey and Astead Herndon report on the front page of the Boston Globe. “The drumbeat … has grown especially intense on Fox News … ‘I’d fire the SOB in three seconds if it were me,’ opined conservative TV commentator Lou Dobbs of Mueller during a segment … Monday night … Gregg Jarrett, a Fox News legal analyst, went even further, pushing for regime change at the Department of Justice. … ‘Shut it down,’ said Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, a conservative group that led the push to uncover Hillary Clinton’s State Department e-mails during the 2016 election.”

— House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) even floated the idea to Laura Ingraham on Fox last night of impeaching Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray. He’s been pushing privately to hold them in contempt if the Justice Department doesn’t turn over documents he wants, so this represents an escalation.

JUST HOW VULNERABLE IS MUELLER?

— “In early December, President Trump, furious over news reports about a new round of subpoenas from the office of the special counsel … told advisers in no uncertain terms that Mr. Mueller’s investigation had to be shut down,” Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt report on the front of today’s New York Times. “The president’s anger was fueled by reports that the subpoenas were for obtaining information about his business dealings with Deutsche Bank, according to interviews with eight White House officials, people close to the president and others familiar with the episode. To Mr. Trump, the subpoenas suggested that Mr. Mueller had expanded the investigation in a way that crossed the ‘red line’ he had set last year …

“In the hours that followed Mr. Trump’s initial anger over the Deutsche Bank reports, his lawyers and advisers worked quickly to learn about the subpoenas, and ultimately were told by Mr. Mueller’s office that the reports were not accurate, leading the president to back down. …“Mr. Trump’s frustrations have tended to flare up in response to developments in the news, especially accounts of appearances of witnesses, whom Mr. Trump feels were unfairly and aggressively approached by investigators. They include his former communications director, Hope Hicks, and his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. The venting has usually been dismissed by his advisers, many of whom insist they have come to see the statements less as direct orders than as simply how the president talks, and that he often does not follow up on his outbursts. One former adviser said that people had become conditioned to wait until Mr. Trump had raised an issue at least three times before acting on it.”

— Trump spent yesterday privately griping about Rosenstein, who personally approved the move to seek a search warrant for Cohen’s records and oversees Mueller’s investigation. “Many in the president’s orbit think Rosenstein’s position is currently the most endangered if the president decides to take action to try to halt the probe,” Ashley Parker, Devlin Barrett, Carol D. Leonnig and Matt Zapotosky report. “[P]eople described Trump as furious and ‘lit up’ by the recent developments, and floating a trial balloon to test the boundaries of trying to halt Mueller’s burgeoning probe. ‘His anger is unabated,’ said a Republican strategist in frequent touch with the White House, who added that the mood there is ‘extremely grim.’

“Someone else in contact with the White House said aides have likened the current atmosphere to two previous crises — when Trump fired [James Comey and Rob Porter] … Alan Dershowitz, a retired Harvard Law School professor whose cable-television commentary has captured Trump’s attention, had dinner Tuesday at the White House with the president, son-in-law Jared Kushner and a handful of other advisers. Reached by phone following the dinner, Dershowitz said he was there to advise Trump on Middle East policy and the conflict in Syria. Asked whether they discussed the Russia investigation, Dershowitz would not say.”

Trump’s decision to cancel his trip to Latin America this week “further inflamed the anxiety of aides, who worry about the president stewing in Washington … as Comey gives his first interview to ABC News on Sunday evening as part of a planned book tour launch. ‘I think it’s going to get gnarly this weekend,’ said a Republican strategist in frequent touch with the White House.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says President Trump “certainly believes he has the power” to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. (Reuters)

— “Multiple people familiar with the discussions” told CNN that Trump is considering firing Rosenstein. From a story with six bylines: “This is one of several options — including going so far as to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions — Trump is weighing … Officials say if Trump acts, Rosenstein is his most likely target, but it’s unclear whether even such a dramatic firing like this would be enough to satisfy the President. … A senior administration official said the White House has been discussing potential options with key congressional Republican leaders, fearful of ‘blindsiding them.’ A person familiar with the conversations says a top congressional Republican advised the White House not to fire Rosenstein.”

— “In the past, Trump’s impulses could be tempered by the calming presence of loyal aides like Hope Hicks and longtime security chief Keith Schiller. But both Hicks and Schiller are gone, leaving Trump to operate largely unchecked,” Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman reports. Three blind quotes from his piece:

• “He’s brooding and doesn’t have a plan,” said a Republican close to the White House.
• “I could see him having a total meltdown and saying, ‘[Screw] it, I’m firing all of them,’” said a Trump friend. “Trump’s just doing his own thing now.”
• “This is very dry tinder. If someone strikes a match to it, you could see it catching fire,” said a former official.

— “Were Rosenstein fired, authority over Mueller’s investigation would kick down to solicitor general Noel Francisco until a permanent replacement was identified,” Philip Bump explains. “Except that Trump might be able to quickly and easily get a more pliable person to fill Rosenstein’s shoes. A law passed in 1998 gives the president the authority to fill any vacant positions that require Senate confirmation with any other person working in the government who’s already been confirmed by the Senate. This is what Trump did with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau … to give control of the bureau to Mick Mulvaney — already confirmed as budget director — after its director resigned. So in theory Trump could fire Rosenstein and then quickly name, say, Environmental Protection Agency director Scott Pruitt as deputy attorney general. There’s one caveat. It’s not entirely clear that Trump could use the Vacancies Act after having fired someone.”

VIDEO HERE

WHAT DROVE THE RAID:

— “Federal prosecutors investigating [Cohen] are seeking records related to two women who received payments in 2016 after alleging affairs with Trump years before — adult-film star Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal,” Ashley Parker, Devlin Barrett, Carol D. Leonnig and Matt Zapotosky report. “The interest in Daniels and McDougal indicates that federal investigators are trying to determine whether there was a broader pattern or strategy among Trump’s associates to buy the silence of women whose accounts could have harmed his electoral chances and whether any crimes were committed in doing so … Investigators are also seeking all communications about Daniels and McDougal among Cohen, David Pecker — a friend of Trump and the chief executive of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer — and Dylan Howard, the chief content officer for American Media and a reporter there. Daniels is cooperating with federal prosecutors, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

“Some White House allies think this one, like many of the administration’s pockets of turbulence, was brought on by Trump himself — specifically, by comments he made last week aboard Air Force One, when he claimed he had no knowledge of the payment Cohen made to Daniels, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

“If both the lawyer and the client insist that Trump had no idea that Cohen had made the payment, they cannot assert that those activities were protected by attorney-client privilege … Several lawyers noted that public statements from Cohen and Trump that the president was unaware of the payment may have significantly aided federal prosecutors’ legal arguments to justify searching the lawyer’s office, home and hotel room.”

— Cohen told CNN’s Don Lemon that FBI agents who conducted the raids were “extremely professional,” a sharp contrast with Trump’s claim that the feds “broke into” his personal attorney’s office. “I am unhappy to have my personal residence and office raided. But I will tell you that members of the FBI that conducted the search and seizure were all extremely professional, courteous and respectful. And I thanked them at the conclusion,” he said. “I would be lying to you if I told that I am not [worried].”

— The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, was not involved in the decision to raid Cohen’s office because he recused himself from the investigation. “Berman is a Trump appointee with ties to Rudy Giuliani who donated money to the 2016 Trump campaign,” ABC News’s Jon Karl and Josh Margolin report.

THE LATEST ON THE INVESTIGATION:

— “Dana Boente, the former acting attorney general who now serves as general counsel at the FBI, has been interviewed by the special counsel’s office and turned over handwritten notes that could be a piece of evidence in the ongoing investigation into whether President Trump obstructed justice,” Matt Zapotosky reports. “Boente was interviewed some months ago by [Mueller team] on a wide range of topics, including his recollections of what [Comey] told him about troubling interactions with Trump … The interview is significant because it shows how Mueller is exploring whether the president obstructed justice and keying in on conversations Trump had with his former FBI director about the probe involving his presidential campaign. It also shows the extent to which Mueller has gone to corroborate Comey’s account. … The notes, which were first shown on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show and confirmed as authentic to The Washington Post by a person familiar with the matter, seem to confirm that what Comey told Boente in the spring of 2017 was consistent with what Comey would later tell Congress about his interactions with Trump.”