The president has fired or forced out upwards of 20 cabinet officials and top aides, so why does the man he has most-often criticized still have a job? And what would happen if he were fired, which Trump has reportedly been mulling this week? Legal experts and political strategists who have either worked directly with the president or observed his behavior from afar attribute Trump’s reluctance to fire Sessions to two major considerations: Fears in the White House that the move would cost the president support among GOP voters and members of Congress, who generally like and support Sessions, and the risk of provoking further allegations of obstruction of justice—both of which could deepen the challenges already facing the administration. [...]
Some legal experts disagree, arguing that, depending on Trump’s motives, such a dismissal could actually constitute obstruction. “The issue would be whether the president had a corrupt purpose—that is, a desire to cover up his own wrongdoing—when he fired Sessions,” Louis Seidman, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown, said. Seidman acknowledged the debate among legal scholars about whether a sitting president can be charged as such for performing acts that are otherwise within their constitutional powers. But he said he believes Trump could be charged with obstruction because “obstruction of justice, by its nature, is inconsistent with the president’s constitutional authority to take care that the laws are faithfully executed.” Jens David Ohlin, a professor at Cornell Law School who specializes in criminal law, said he believed that firing Sessions “would immediately provoke a political crisis for Trump and would accelerate impeachment talk—because the firing would be a major obstruction of justice, this one even larger than the Comey firing.” And despite its skepticism of the legal merits, it’s clear that the White House is taking the political consequences of the charge seriously. Roger Stone, a long-time informal adviser to Trump, said the president’s advisors “have convinced him he will be impeached if he does” fire Sessions. [...]
The former campaign adviser raised this as an issue, too, noting that the Senate Judiciary Committee has warned Trump that it won’t hold confirmation hearings for a new attorney general if Sessions is dismissed (and leading Senate Republicans said last summer that recess appointments were not an option). But that was then, and this is now, said the person familiar with the president’s thinking. “If you had asked me six months ago what the consequences would be if Trump fired Sessions or Rosenstein, I would have said: ‘He would be impeached and Republicans would be leading the way.’ Now, I’m not so sure.” This person, who is a Republican, pointed to what he saw as the GOP’s reluctance to hold Trump accountable for actions ranging from firing former FBI Director James Comey to failing to adequately address allegations that he had his lawyer pay hush money to a porn star. “If Trump makes the political calculation that he can weather the storm of firing these guys, whether it’s Sessions or Rosenstein, and shutting down the investigation, he’ll do it,” this person said.
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