criminal charges. but if he doesn t want to, at some point robert mueller has to make a decision is it worth using a subpoena to compel him, which could escalate to some constitutional crisis, or at the very least, cause severe delay in what he wants to do. or simply say i ve got enough, i ve got enough evidence of corrupt intent. i ve given him a chance to tell his side of the story and if he doesn t want to avail himself of that, then let s just go forward. so it seems like that is where robert mueller is. he ll have to make that decision, but it sounds like he has concluded, let s just go, here is the evidence i have. it is likely, if he is going forward, sufficient evidence to prove all of the elements of the offense which includes that corrupt intent. mueller s obviously kept a pretty tight lid on his investigation. from the bits though we ve been able to decipher from some of the reporting we ve seen, what does it look like to you as a prosecutor who has done these kind of thin
if the president fires him, or keeps him, i think the president might still have a problem. which choice would be better? oh, there s no question that the wrong choice is firing him. it is possible to build a case of obstruction against yourself, even if you didn t commit the original crime. it is hard to do. but this president could very well achieve that. and the problem is that firing rosenstein is not just the wrong thing to do, it wouldn t work. rosenstein s an institutional player. he is doing what anyone would have done in that position. you can t get rid of the rosenstein problem without getting rid of the institution. because what rosenstein is saying is that mueller came to him and said, i have evidence of criminal acts that are not within the scope of my investigation. do the critics of rosenstein expect him to say, well, that s just too hot to handle?
swab, carol leonnig, carol lee, thank you all. still up this morning, law professor jonathan turley says president trump could be building a strong case against himself. and senate republicans like orrin hatch say firing mueller would be damaging to the country but so far the party isn t ready to protect the special counsel through legislation. a group of republicans are on a mission to change that and they are taking that message straight to the american people. you re watching morning joe. we ll be right back.
robert mueller. this is our justice system and it needs to play itself out. call your representative and tell them to protect the mueller investigation. wow. that is a group called republicans for the rule of law, out with that new ad in an effort to protect robert mueller. really good. joining us now, one of the people behind that group, editor the a large at the weekly standard, bill krystal. also, jonathan turley who has a new piece in morning warning president trump that he could be building a case against himself if he fires the deputy attorney general. and here on set, former advisor to president george w. bush and co-creator and executive producer of the circus on show time, mark mckinnon. mark is back from russia where much of the season premier of the circus takes place. we ll get to that in a moment. fascinating. good to have you all on board this morning. we begin though, of course, jonathan turley, i m wondering if you look at rod rosenstein,
continues to investigate the links with russia phase. so kind of two different segments of the case. but it sounds like he may carve out the obstruction case, which is a more finite case really. only a few discrete acts would constitute obstruction of justice. if he s exhausted all the interviews and looked at all the documents related to that, sounds like maybe he s ready to put that piece before the american people. the russia piece involves people and financial records all over the world and may take some time to be able to conclude that part of the case. jonathan swan, robert mueller will be presenting his findings to rod rhodesenste rosenstein. question is what he does with it from there. question to you is, what is his standing at this point? the president wants to get rid of him. it is not black, it is not white. it is very clear. there s no sorry, there s no grey about it. he wants to get rid of rod rosenstein. his legal team, ty cobb, don