Is Donald Trump going to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel? It sure looks that way, especially after yesterday's ouster of Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the F.B.I.
But you don't know for sure and I don't know for sure and Trump may not even know for sure. I'd like to suggest an interesting way to look at this question…
I'm a big believer in Alternatives. When someone makes a decision to do A and you wonder why they did A, you need to consider option B…or even if there was an option B. Sometimes, you discover they did A because there was no option B or there was but option B was worse. A long-ago friend of mine who committed suicide obviously did it because all his alternatives were horrendous and more painful than — in his case — jumping off a very tall building.
We don't know all of what Robert Mueller is investigating and what charges he could potentially bring against Trump and those around him…but Trump probably has a good idea. When he decided to run for the White House, he had to have himself internally-vetted. He had to figure out what he'd done that his opponents could possibly learn. There might be files to hide, papers to destroy, witnesses to silence, porn stars to pay off, etc. Even honest politicians have to ask the musical question, "What can be used against me?"
Trump may not know everything about the dirty deeds that he's done dirt cheap but he knows a lot and he can pay people who function under attorney/client privilege to look into matters, weigh them against actual statutes and advise where lie the potential land mines. I'm imagining him sitting there with two reports — and while they're probably both too long and complicated for him to read in full, he might make it partway through each since they are, after all, full of the word "Trump."
Anyway, he can have his attorneys explain things to him and become at least as informed as he is about anything about which he makes decisions. One report lists all the charges and indictments that might result if Mueller is allowed to complete his investigation in full. And the other report summarize the problems that will result if he dismisses Mueller.
Some of his supporters will hail him for nuking a bogus, politically-motivated witch hunt but a lot of people will not, including maybe even some former Trump loyalists in Congress. He might have most of them by the 'nads but not all. There are those who face tough re-election prospects. That's what caused a lot of elected Republicans to abandon Nixon during Watergate. They looked at their alternatives — support him and lose this part of their base, back him and lose the other part of their base — and many let him know he could not count on their backing. There will be some price to pay for firing Mueller. If there wasn't, he would have done it long ago.
Obviously, I don't think Trump is a very smart man but he's gotten too far in life to dismiss him as totally inept at everything. No, he's not good at chess but he's a master of dodgeball. I think it's just a matter of him looking at A or B and deciding which one augurs worse for Donald J. Trump. Has he really committed so many crimes and shady deals that firing the special counsel will seem like the lesser shit storm? It's starting to look that way.