barr expressed it by saying trump could not be exposed to obstruction of justice for firing james comey. there will now be 52 or 53 republicans, 52 in the senate, they are going to have the majority. and i think they will get barr confirmed as attorney general. it is good to be in the majority. fair enough. yeah. and this issue of the unitary executive, i think probably doesn t get enough attention. there is a lot of debate and discussion about sort of an independent department of justice, an independent prosecutors. the reality, especially under this theory of the unitary executive is that it is the president that oversees the executive branch of government and all of the agencies. that s the president s job. well, you might understand why it would appeal to someone. outnumbered, but not out
theme, and that is this judge s decision, judge kavanagh s decision to support what they call the unitary executive, which gives the president extraordinary powers under our constitution. at this particular moment in history, with this particular president, it is clear that many of us on our side of the aisle very concerned about that possibility. let me ask you about something that your colleague senator kamala harris raised with judge kavanagh this morning. she asked him if he had had any conversations with anyone at mark kazowitz on the topic of the mueller probe. take me through your analysis and your understanding of that exchange and its significance. please tell us what does senator harris know about brett kavanagh and his conversations with someone at that firm? i ve not spoken to my colleague about her knowledge. we ve had some conversation over lunch about what the possibilities may be. she raised it last night and
pardons to hundreds of nonviolent drug offenders. presidents get in trouble when they go outside that process. bill clinton went outside that process to pardon mark rich. president trump, the pardon of scooter libby, joe arpaio, was not in that process. it s problematic, it s politically troubling, but as a matter of presidential power, there s no doubt that the president has the authority to do it. i m so glad jeffrey s finally, finally learning that the president really does have these enormous powers under the unitary executive, to pardon, to fire, to end an investigation. it doesn t make them right. i don t condone the president telling people to stop an investigation or go soft, but i would distinguish and jeffrey now distinguishes between what s right and what s unlawful. thank you for patronizing me so gently there, but i actually don t think it s the same thing
let s bring in cnn political analyst john avlon and cnn asha. i think the big headline is it wasn t just one time they were thinking about getting rid of mueller, which makes sense. if you want to get rid of him once. it s only gotten worse. but the idea from sarah sanders, she was is incorrect. they believe the president can remove mueller directly. this guideline supposed to be done by the guideline, it doesn t supersede his authority. your take? so as you said, chris, this keeps getting worse. which means if he had wanted to do this firing, he should have dup it a year ago. it gets more and more self interested as we go on. what you re talking about is a theory called the unitary executive, the president has all
of does the president have the authority to fire special prosecutor robert mueller? okay, the short answer is there are probably ways he can do it. but the sort of dershowitz line that some have been plying i think does not does not make it there would be two theories. one would just be i m the president and you fire. it s the so-called full unitary executive. it s been discredited by the supreme court. it s unlikely to fly. so where are we? there is a regulation there. and as long as there is a regulation, the court says it stays in place. you to follow the regulation. that s why he would have to have cause. he would have to order s senn stein to do it. rosenstein would probably resign. the things we ve talked about over the course of the last few months. however, the possible route to bypassing that would be for the president. and i think he would have the power to do this, to order the regulation to be rescinded. and then he might have an open