The Resistance Is Already Planning for When Trump Fires Mueller [View all]

[TomCADem]

Of course, I am sure Trump and his goons are looking forward to Black Bloc to give them a reason to begin busting heads in the name of law and order.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/07/21/the_resistance_is_already_planning_for_when_trump_fires_robert_mueller.html

It feels like our democracy is hurtling toward a cliff. Trump is hinting that he might try to shut down Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor investigating whether his campaign colluded with Russia. If he did so, he’d be following in the footsteps of Richard Nixon, who forced the resignation of both his attorney general and his deputy attorney general before he found a Justice Department lackey—Robert Bork—willing to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Yet Nixon’s power grab was constrained by a Democratic Congress. Trump has a Republican one. And if the only thing standing between the American public and outright authoritarianism is the civic integrity of congressional Republicans, we’re in an inconceivably dangerous place.

Various resistance groups have started contingency planning for what happens if Trump attempts to kill the Mueller probe. “No one’s going to do anything prematurely, or accept the idea that Trump is going to or can fire Mueller,” said Fred Wertheimer, founder of the government watchdog group Democracy 21. “But if that should happen, or if he issues pardons, then a large number of groups that have been coordinating their efforts are going to be ready to help take the issue to the country and the Congress.”

If news breaks that Trump has forced Mueller out, Wertheimer believes that “the country will explode.” For the resistance, the trick is making sure the explosion is sustained. “That means people in the streets, demonstrations, marches, folks coming to Washington, a massive lobbying effort in Congress,” he said.

Yet everything keeps coming back to pushing a Congress that has so far been supine before the president and often hostile to dissenting constituents. “If Trump were to fire Mueller, that is to me the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu told me. “I think at that point you’re going to have large numbers of Republicans saying we need to start impeachment proceedings.”