MORGANTOWN – The appointment of former FBI director Robert Mueller as special counsel to conduct the investigation between the Trump administration and Russia was an inevitable choice, John Taylor, Jackson Kelly professor of law at West Virginia University, said.
“(Deputy Attorney General Rod) Rosenstein had been implicated regarding the firing of Comey and both he and (Attorney General Jeff) Sessions were under a shadow,” Taylor told The West Virginia Record. “I figured Rosenstein might be inclined to (appoint special counsel) because he had a stellar reputation which was somewhat damaged by the way in which Trump brought him into the firing of Comey, (when he said) Rosenstein told him to fire Comey.”
Taylor said the universal reaction seems to be that Muller was a safe and sensible choice because he has an “extraordinary reputation for independence and is respected bipartisan on both sides of the isle,” and that is exactly what this person needs to be able to do to conduct the investigation. Taylor also said Mueller has a great deal more independence that an ordinary staff attorney. As special counsel, he is fireable by Rosenstein, who answers to Trump, and he can demand Mueller be fired, but, “given the political scandal in 1973, it would be pretty infeasible, just as (Archibald) Cox was fired at (Richard) Nixon’s behest.”
Taylor said he believes Trump firing Mueller would be impractical.
“We don’t know what the evidence is going to uncover, but the grant of special counsel in Rosenstein’s order is broad enough to pursue where it leads,” he said. “What we do know is that we have someone who is experienced, skilled and trustworthy and who has the authority to try to figure out what happened. And we (should have) a pretty good level of confidence in the outcome as being as close to the truth as we’re going to get.”
Taylor said the difference between special counsel, special prosecutor and independent counsel like Ken Starr dates back to Watergate when Special Prosecutor Cox, the modern-day version of Mueller, was investigating the Nixon and Nixon fired him. This model didn’t work because Cox didn’t have enough independence but the Starr was too independent and unaccountable as independent counsel.
“We’re now back to the special counsel model where there is a good deal of independence but we don’t have quite the degree of independence that we had with the independence counsel law and Trump can’t legally say I don’t like what Mueller is doing and axe him,” he said.
Taylor said it’s possible that if Trump believed Mueller’s investigation would threaten him in some way or he did have something to hide, he would try to undermine it in advance by attacking Mueller.
“But, I have to think that even he would recognize that if you interfere with what Mueller is doing, everyone will scream bloody murder and say 'Why in the world would you do that if you’re not guilty?'” he said. “Mueller is too smart and too skilled to screw things up and knows full well he’s been put there to do everything right.”
