By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
Senators from both sides of the aisle are backing legislation to make it more difficult for President Trump to fire special counsel Robert Mueller.
But the New York Post reports that the legislation “ran into legal hurdles Tuesday at the Senate Judiciary Committee.”
The issue is whether the proposals are legal.
Akhil Reed Amar, a professor at Yale Law School and a Democrat, told the committee that the legislation likely won’t pass constitutional muster.
“I must sadly report as a scholar who has studied the Constitution I believe the bills in their current forms are unwise and unconstitutional. It gives me no pleasure to say this,” said Amar, who suggested instead a new bipartisan senatorial oversight panel.
University of Texas Law School Prof. Stephen Vladeck and University of Chicago Law School Prof. Eric Posner disagreed.
“I conclude that they do not violate the principles of separation of powers and, on the contrary, advance important constitutional values,” Posner testified.
Two bills are being considered by the committee.
“Both bills were introduced when media speculation was rampant that President Trump was contemplating firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller,” said Committee chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). “The President has said that he does not intend to fire the special counsel, and I think that he made the right decision.”
