“If it wasn’t Mueller it would have been another special prosecutor cooked up by Rotten Rod on a flimsy pretext.”
If the AG had been capable, confident, and strong he or she would not have recused. If the AG did not recuse, Rosenstein could not appoint a special counsel without approval from the AG. Sessions was weak and he allowed Rosenstein to talk him into recusing. Recall it happened quickly and Sessions didn’t even put up a fight or discuss with his boss (Trump) the implications. A competent, confident, and loyal AG would have said no to a special counsel just as Eric Holder refused demands to appoint special counsels during the Obama administration. No AG approval, no special counsel.
I agree Trump has fought the GOP as much as the Deep State over the past 3 1/2 years. Even more reason he should have done a better job of hiring people who would support him and have his back.
During the campaign Trump appointed Chris Christie to head the transition. This is probably the most important job a candidate for president fills. The transition lead is responsible for identifying, vetting, and having the key positions in an incoming administration identified and ready to go the day after the election. All of the cabinet positions, key undersecretaries in various departments, Chief of Staff, key ambassadorships, and a number of other jobs should have been named within a week or two of election day.
The sad fact is Trump had no team ready to go. Trump, the candidate who bragged about his rolodex and all the great people he would bring into government from industry was totally unprepared to assume office. He fired Christie and started looking for people. The story about his great business friends wanting to come to Washington turned out to be hyperbole. Without CEO’s chomping at the bit to come to work for Trump in Washington, and without any prep work having been done, Trump had to rely on Reince Priebus, Mitch McConnell, and other establishment Republicans to find people to staff the administration. When all you are doing is trying to quickly fill seats, you end up making bad hires. On inauguration day, he had very few appointees identified and even fewer approved by the Senate. As a result, Trump came into office with Obama holdovers staffing most of the key jobs below the cabinet secretary level. A year later, he was still filling jobs.
So what happened? Did Christie fail Trump? Was Trump not thinking about what he would have to do the day after the election? Did Trump and Christie not believe Trump would win and as a result ignored the transition process? Whatever happened, it was a major failure of Trump as a leader, and chief executive. Successful CEO’s must think about and prepare for the tasks ahead of them, not just the issues they face in the moment.
In the immortal words of Harry S. Truman, “The buck stops here.” Trump made bad personnel decisions during the campaign and immediately after which faciliated the assault of the Washington establishment on his presidency. He, and the nation, have been paying the price since then. On election day 2020, he may lose as a result of not having an A+ team ready to go to battle with him on inauguration day 2017 given that some of the senior appointees he did make seem to have no hesitation to publicly decline to follow his direction (Defense Secretary Esper, Christopher Wray for example).
If the AG had been capable, confident, and strong he or she would not have recused. If the AG did not recuse, Rosenstein could not appoint a special counsel without approval from the AG.
The GOP Senate was/is never going to confirm a MAGA AG. Sessions was the best Trump was going to get. The Swamp was in full MAGA obstruction mode in 2017. This is a provably bipartisan ongoing coup against POTUS. If it wasn’t the Mueller hoax in 2017 it would have been something else cooked up by the Uniparty to nullify the election of President Trump. Of that I have n doubt.
Whatever executive branch picks POTUS make or doesn’t make isn’t going to change these basic facts on the ground. He is a POTUS without the support of his own party and every issue pivots around that simple truth.