By Sam Scafidi
Article Originally Posted Feb. 8th 2018
Last Friday, Republicans released a memo which stated that President Donald Trump attempted to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller back in June of 2017. Mueller is currently employed by the Attorney general Jeff Sessions, but Sessions has distanced himself from the investigation and has placed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in charge. It is not clear if Rosenstein is going to fire Mueller, but when asked if he still has confidence in him, Trump replied "You figure that one out."
If Trump made a decision to fire Rosenstein or force him to fire Mueller, it would mean he was preventing an investigation of himself, he would be nearly as powerful as a dictator.
The most powerful man in the world would have no checks or balances.
At the present moment, Republicans control both the House of Representatives and Congress. Therefore, Trump has a monopoly over most of the government. The only branch he has little to no control over is the Supreme Court. With all of this power, one would think it is easy for the president to pass laws in his favor. However, there is one thing stopping him: he is unpopular.
Trump is, on a somewhat bipartisan level, unpopular among citizens and government officials of the US. This is why he is concerned about being dethroned. The most Senate Republicans have been able to do is protect and defend the President. A select few Republicans have been working hard to make rational decisions, not just ones to promote their party. Most notable is Jeff Flake, who denounced the remarks Trump made about how the act of not applauding during his State of the Union was “treasonous”. He and two other republican senators will not be running next term by choice.
And then there's the investigation.
Since the rumors started circulating about interference with the campaigns before the election, Trump has been denying that there was any collusion. In addition, since the investigation started in May of 2017, the President has denied that he is being investigated at all. (And, if you do the math, Trump tried to fire Mueller just one month after he was appointed.) He's denied these provable facts so much, it has gotten to the point that it is obvious he's lying.
Robert Mueller, who has been investigating the White House for about ten months now, is most likely the best person for the job. In response to the Republican memo released on Friday, some questions have arisen about the bipartisan nature of the Special Counsel. However, these have since been debunked by the Democrat's memo, due to their invalidity and vagueness.
The memo does give some powerful-sounding accusations against Mueller for overstepping his bounds and not getting the approval to investigate into certain matters. However, none of these are valid or significant enough to stop the investigation.
Right now, the public does not have much power. If Trump fires Mueller, then he would be taking away one of the only things that would balance him. Our government works on a checks and balances system, and it is currently not working the way it's supposed to. There are Democrats in Congress trying to get a bill through which would grand the special counsel certain protections. However, because of the current Republican majority, it would be nearly impossible to get that through to the President, who would most definitely veto it. The most the citizens can do is voice their opinion by means of protest, writing emails or texts to their representatives, or even calling their office.
Trump is on the verge of becoming a dictator. His actions mixed with the virtual monopoly over the government has made him untouchable in the past year. The most the citizens can do now is reach out to their representatives. Otherwise, the people who bullied their way into Washington will get exactly what they want, not what they deserve.