Minority leader weighs in
“The president suggests that the latest events are part of a partisan conspiracy against him. I’d remind President Trump that the source of the referral, Special Counsel Mueller, is a lifelong Republican. The deputy attorney general who signed off on the referral, Rod Rosenstein, is a Republican, appointed by President Trump. …
The FBI Agents in New York who carried out the seizure are under the direction of Christopher Wray, a Republican, appointed by President Trump. So if President Trump believes this to be a partisan conspiracy, he once again ignores the fact that every major player is a Republican and all but the judges appointed by President Trump himself.”
— Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer independent “filter” or “taint team” would then review documents to see which are protected by attorney-client privilege.
The review itself can be nuanced and subject to further legal challenges, according to the Politifact website. “While discussions about a client’s past crimes would typically be privileged, communications about a current or future crime involving a lawyer and client are not covered. There’s a similar exception for fraud, which more typically arises in civil rather than criminal contexts,” it said.
Turley sees a possible scenario where federal prosecutors might uncover evidence of a separate criminal matter that could be used against Cohen — and then be used to force the attorney to cooperate in the investigation of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.
Under that scenario, Turley wrote in The Hill, “Cohen’s greatest danger to Trump may be not as a defendant, but as bait.”
The office of special counsel Robert Mueller has used its power to leverage guilty pleas from former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, and Richard Gates, a one-time Trump campaign official and business partner of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
Lawyer: Mueller ‘goading Trump’
But Toensing sees another possible motive in the special counsel’s apparent involvement in the raids on Cohen.
“I think Mueller’s goading Trump to fire him because he can’t find Russian collusion,” she said.
At Tuesday’s White House press briefing, press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters that Trump thinks he has the right to fire Mueller.
Most experts disagree, but they acknowledge that Trump has the authority to tell Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire Mueller, and then fire Rosenstein if he refuses to do so. (Attorney General Jeff Sessions cannot fire Mueller as he recused himself from the Russian probe.)
But if Trump chose that route, he likely would find himself reliving the 1973 “Saturday Night Massacre” when in order to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox, President Richard Nixon was forced to accept the resignations of his attorney general and his deputy.
The maneuver did not end well for Nixon, who later resigned to avoid impeachment, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-iowa, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told CNN on Tuesday that it could lead to a similar outcome if Trump were to try it.
“I think it would be suicide for the president to fire him,” he said. “I think the less the president says about this whole thing, the better off he will be. And I think Mueller is a person of stature and respected and I respect him. Just let the thing go forward.”
Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal. com or 202-662-7391. Follow @ Debrajsaunders on Twitter.