If Rosenstein was fired or quit, I assume his Mueller “scope” memos would remain in effect?
Not necessarily. The new boss could interpret the scope differently, and reassign out of scope cases away from SC to USA.
From what I have read you are right. Rosenstein was taking no chances. He has granted Mueller near absolute power. How that gets undone at this point I couldn’t tell you.
Here’s an excerpt re how difficult it would be to rein Mueller’s hyena pack in:
Mueller team’s special status could save Virginia Manafort case
By JOSH GERSTEIN 05/21/2018 06:10 AM EDT
An obscure special status obtained by several of special counsel Robert Mueller’s attorneys could prevent a judge from ousting Mueller’s lawyers from their role in the prosecution of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in federal court in Virginia.
Several court filings indicate that when lawyers from Mueller’s office appeared in federal court in Alexandria earlier this year, they did so not only as representatives of Mueller’s office but as special assistant United States attorneys (SAUSAs) attached to the United States attorney’s office there.
That designation gives the Mueller prosecutors a kind of dual status that could complicate any attempt by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III to try to shift the case to federal prosecutors based in Alexandria — a possibility the judge mentioned on a couple of occasions during a contentious hearing earlier this month.
A spokesman for Mueller’s office, Peter Carr, confirmed to POLITICO that some of the attorneys on the special counsel’s team have the SAUSA status. Carr pointed to a local federal court rule that allows federal prosecutors to handle cases there when “appearing pursuant to the authority of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.”
One lawyer who has studied the use of SAUSAs said the granting of that status to lawyers on Mueller’s team theoretically gives them the authority to pursue matters that aren’t within the special counsel’s mandate.