Speculative memo on President's potential powers to shut down the Special Counsel and obstruct justice

anticipating its own demise and what consequences that might bring. It believes that in the inevitable Supreme Court battle that would follow a direct attempt by the President to fire the Special Counsel, the Court would surely rebuff such an expansion of Presidential authority. At the same time, according to its internal research, the Mueller team understands that the President, acting with only somewhat more subtlety, would have the authority to order the Attorney General—even given his prior recusal—to repeal the Special Counsel regulations and close down the investigation, and fire the Attorney General if he refuses. The President, could, too, according to the Special Counsel's analysis, fire Rosenstein and seek someone else to oversee the investigation in ways more to his liking. Both of these actions could, the Special Counsel believes, become part of the behavior that it argues in the indictment amounts to a prima facie case for obstruction of justice. The team does yet believe it is protected by political realities—the President can not know how Congress might respond—and by bureaucratic ones. Changes to the Special Counsel authorization might require an extended comment period. Still, what if the President acting unilaterally does shut it down? This, people around the President say is the unknown legal area that might be advantageous to the President. Delays and disruption might well be the President's legal friends. What, for instance, happens to all the work the Special Counsel's office had done, and, indeed, to the sitting Grand Juries reviewing the evidence? The special counsel's view, according to insiders working on the issues, is that nobody knows. The optimistic legal view is that the Office and staff would survive the Special Counsel's ouster and their work preserved. And that actions taken by the Grand Jury would remain in effect. This, however, would probably not be true if the Attorney General refused the next Special Counsel's budget request—due on July 1. That would shut down the whole operation—the Special Counsel staff and grand juries. There might, however, according to research the team has prepared, be enough time between the order and the shuttering for the Special Counsel to share the grand jury evidence with other federal prosecutors. The President's constitutional pardon powers appear to be some of the most troubling and threatening issues for the Special Counsel. The Counsel's office believes the President will use his pardon power as an HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029171