MUELLER’S FORTHCOMING ASSAULT ON THE SEPARATION OF POWERS? Bloomberg: “When it comes to the obstruction portion of the investigation, Mueller is said to be focused on three main episodes: Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey last May; the drafting of a misleading statement about the purpose of a June 2016 meeting between Don Jr., Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and a group of Russians at Trump Tower; and the disclosure that Trump considered firing Mueller last June.”

The first and third of these are part of the Executive’s constitutional authority to hire and fire whomever he wants who works for him. It’s hard to imagine that the Supreme Court would ultimately uphold obstruction of justice charges against a president for firing his underlings, unless perhaps the president knew that the individual in question was literally just about to indict him. The view of the executive branch that Comey seems to be operating under, that the FBI director and special prosecutor are not the president’s agents but are instead somehow independent officials not subject to presidential authority is quite wrong, constitutionally.

(Bumped, by Glenn).