Blog No. 176. Donald Trump as Hamlet

Although the FBI raid on the home and office of Trump lawyer, Michael Cohen, was not ordered by Robert Mueller, that action sent the President into an angry fulmination against Mueller’s investigation: “witch hunt,” “total disgrace,” “ attack on the country.” On the heels of Trump’s tirade, a reporter asked why he did not simply fire Mueller. Trump did not answer directly but responded much as if he were reflecting to himself out loud:

Well, I think it’s a disgrace, what’s going on. We’ll see what happens. But I think it’s really a sad situation when you look at what happened. And many people have said you should fire him. Again, they found nothing and in finding nothing, that’s a big statement.

In saying “we’ll see what happens,” Trump clearly signaled that firing Mueller would be under consideration as, indeed, it had been in the past. In fact, it had been reported in January that Trump had ordered Mueller fired last June and backed off only when the White House Counsel, Don McGahn, had threatened to resign. In addition, it was recently disclosed that Trump had considered firing Mueller in December. Then yesterday the New York Times reported that White House aides were “deeply anxious over the prospect that the president might use the treatment of his lawyer as a pretext” to fire Mueller. Their concerns could only have been heightened when Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders asserted that the President has the authority to fire Mueller. Trump could indeed fire Mueller, but he has surely been told that firing Mueller could not be easily accomplished and would come at a considerable political cost.

Any claim that Trump could fire Mueller directly would be highly dubious. The order by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointing Mueller was issued pursuant to Department of Justice regulations providing in part:

The Special Counsel may be disciplined or removed from office only by the personal action of the Attorney General. The Attorney General may remove a Special Counsel for misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or for other good cause, including violation of Departmental policies. The Attorney General shall inform the Special Counsel in writing of the specific reason for his or her removal.

Given the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Rosenstein is “the Attorney General” for purposes of the regulation, and he has made it clear in public statements that he approves of Mueller’s conduct of the investigation. There is no reason to believe that his view is likely to change. Thus, to fire Mueller it would be necessary first to fire Rosenstein and appoint an Acting Deputy Attorney General, or fire Sessions and appoint an Acting Attorney General who could take over supervision of Mueller from Rosenstein. The replacement for either would have to be someone willing to find the “good cause” for firing Mueller that was not evident to Rosenstein.

From comments that Trump made on Monday and previously, it is clear that he would be happy to be rid of both Sessions and Rosenstein as well as Mueller. Trump complained once again that Sessions had made a “terrible mistake” in recusing himself from the Russia investigation. And, while Trump expressed appreciation that Rosenstein had written a memo that Trump had used to justify the firing of James Comey, he quickly went on to complain that Rosenstein had “signed the FISA warrant.” (For those who may not follow every detail of these peculiar matters, the mention of a FISA warrant referred to an application to the FISA court in 2017 for an extension of a warrant initially obtained in October, 2016 for surveillance of one Carter Page, who had recently left the Trump campaign. The FISA application was based in part on information from the controversial “Steele Dossier” and has been treated by Trump supporters on the House Intelligence Committee and their media allies as an original sin that taints the entire Russia investigation.)

The political consequences of firing Mueller, or even the trifecta of Mueller, Rosenstein and Sessions, are difficult to assess. Sessions has his own base of support among conservatives, and Mueller has support not only from Democrats on Capitol Hill but from most Republicans who have spoken out. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally one day and critic the next, said late last month that if Trump fired Mueller, it “would be the beginning of the end of his presidency.” And on Tuesday, Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, described such an action even more colorfully as “suicide.” Grassley may have been speaking in hyperbole, but it did add something of a Shakespearean flavor to Trump’s anguished musing on Monday. Trump hardly shares Hamlet’s moral sensitivities, but as he reflects on how to resolve his problems with Mueller, Rosenstein and Sessions, he might find some resonance in the Danish Prince’s famous soliloquy:

To be, or not to be–that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep–

No more–and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished.

* * * *

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprise of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

Trump not only considers himself beset by slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but now finds himself in the unwelcome position of being sicklied oe’r by the pale cast of thought, a condition he has seldom experienced. Nevertheless, while things did not end well for Hamlet and those around him, it is not clear that Trump’s prospects are, even metaphorically, quite so dire; Mueller has been the subject of a continuing barrage of criticism from Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, the claque on Fox News, and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. That barrage has, as doubtless intended, given cover to those in the Trump base who cling stubbornly to the principle of “Hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil” with respect to their dear leader.

Thus, there is evidence that the attacks on Mueller have taken a toll in public opinion, particularly among Republicans. Politico reported last month poll results showing that, among Republicans, Mueller’s unfavorables outweighed favorables by a margin of 41 to 28. By contrast, his overall favorables (including Democrats and Independents) outweighed unfavorables by a margin of 35% to 28% (37% no opinion), but Capitol Hill Republicans tend to give principal deference to the base they share with Trump. In short, there is reason to suspect that despite the warnings by Graham and Grassley, Trump might survive a firing of Mueller. Still, that could change. According to a CNBC report, the Cohen raid “sent shockwaves through Republican leadership ranks as Democrats look to flip both houses of Congress in November’s midterm elections.” Then, as if to emphasize the point, Speaker Paul Ryan announced today that he would join the growing ranks of Republican retirees.

There are one or two lessons of Watergate that might be worth remembering here. When Richard Nixon fired the Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox, the trifecta of departures that day included Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckleshaus, but Nixon did survive the event. On the other hand, he gained nothing by the maneuver beyond, perhaps, a momentary sense of satisfaction. After the public outcry that ensued, Nixon was immediately forced to replace Cox with Leon Jaworski, who continued the investigation with equal determination and no apparent loss of momentum. (Richardson was replaced by William Saxbe and Ruckleshaus by Lawrence Silberman, both of whom were careful to stay out of Jaworski’s way.) Thus, any sense of relief from surviving the Saturday Night Massacre was only transitory.

One wild card, of course, is what further revelations concerning Trump and the alumni of his campaign may appear, even in the short run. If the raid on Michael Cohen’s offices proves to have been productive, it has the potential of making Trump’s position significantly more difficult. Admittedly, the Mueller investigation, even augmented by a parallel investigation under the U.S. Attorney in New York, may not provide the silver bullet hoped for by many of Trump’s opponents. On the other hand, it would be premature to write it off, as David Brooks appeared to do in a disconsolate Tuesday column titled “The Failures of Anti-Trumpism.” He observed dismissively that “For all the hype, the Mueller investigation looks less and less likely to fundamentally alter the course of the administration.” Well, perhaps, but as the President is wont to say, “we will see what happens.”