It came as no surprise when someone suggested that Trump could potentially be impeached for trying to have Robert Mueller fired. What came as a surprise was who made that suggestion–Ken Starr.
On Sunday’s edition of ABC’s “This Week,” Senator Lindsey Graham reiterated his earlier warning to Trump–fire Mueller at your peril. Watch Graham here.
Last year, Graham said that any attempt to fire Mueller “without cause” would be the beginning of the end for the Trump administration. He told guest host Martha Raddatz that warning still stood–if Trump tried to fire Mueller, “it would be the end of his presidency.”
On the heels of this, Starr and ABC News chief legal affairs anchor Dan Abrams debated whether Trump exposed himself to criminal liability by trying to have Mueller fired. Starr believed that firing Mueller would be “unwise,” but didn’t think it would be corrupt. Abrams disagreed, saying that while firing Mueller would not in and of itself be illegal, putting it together with the ouster of FBI Director James Comey could potentially become “a piece in an obstruction case” if his goal was to end the investigation into Russia’s effort to hack the election.
Starr believed that while Trump’s behavior was effectively saying that he didn’t like Mueller because “he is in my face,” he didn’t think it rose to the level of corruption. He did, however, say that while it may not be criminal, “the power of the presidency has a huge check”–Congress.
Later, Raddatz recalled that when Starr was independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation, he concluded that Bill Clinton’s denials of sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky was an impeachable offense. It led Raddatz to wonder if there was a parallel with Trump’s previous public denials that he even considered firing Mueller.
Watch Starr’s response here.
If President Trump's denial of the reports he tried to fire Robert Mueller are not true, would that be grounds for impeachment? Ken Starr tells @MarthaRaddatz, "I take lying to the American people very, very seriously. So, absolutely." #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/GxfUznvMry
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) January 28, 2018
Starr replied that “lying to the American people” was a very serious matter, and something that Mueller “should look at.” In the same breath, however, he seemingly disagreed with Abrams’ contention that Trump would have crossed a bright line if he was trying to “get rid of the investigation.”
Abrams was dumbfounded. He couldn’t believe that Starr appeared to be saying that it would be a “potential legal/potential impeachment problem” if Trump tried to dump Mueller in order to get rid of the investigation. That prompted Starr to say, “We’re talking about impeachment, we’re not talking about the courthouse.”
I hope I’m reading Starr right. He seems to be saying that if Trump lied about wanting Mueller fired and did so as part of a larger pattern intended to derail the investigation into the Russian hacking, it could potentially be an impeachable offense.
Admittedly, it wouldn’t take a law degree to come to that conclusion. After all, if a president were to try to fire an investigator who was delving into your dealings and the dealings of your inner circle, it would be hard to find a good-faith reason for doing so. And if a president were to fire that investigator and lie about his reasons for doing so–or deny that he ever wanted him fired–it would at the very least meet the real-world definition of obstruction of justice.
It would be rather ironic if that were to be the case, since there’s an exponentially stronger argument for obstruction of justice on Trump’s part than there was for Clinton. Remember, folks, we already know that Comey was fired when the investigation got too close to Trump’s inner circle, and Trump himself. We also know that Trump was caught red-handed lying about his reasoning for firing Comey. In contrast, in order to prove that Clinton obstructed justice, you would have had to prove that he told dozens of White House staffers to lie about it under oath–and there’s no evidence that he did so.
Starr has said that he regrets leading the Lewinsky investigation. Is he trying to atone by suggesting that Trump may have committed an impeachable offense? We can only hope.
(featured image: screengrab courtesy CNN)
