The fate of Robert Mueller, the special counsel in the Russia investigation, is shaping up to be the next big political battleground. On Friday, Democratic Congresswoman Jackie Speier told a California radio station that she heard rumors that President Donald Trump was planning to fire Mueller. Trump’s political allies at Fox News have been urging him on this course. “The only thing that remains is whether we have the fortitude to not just fire these people immediately, but to take them out in cuffs,” Jeanine Pirro, whose show Trump watches and whom he has invited to the White House, said on Saturday. The next day, former Attorney General Eric Holder tweeted:

ABSOLUTE RED LINE: the firing of Bob Mueller or crippling the special counsel’s office. If removed or meaningfully tampered with, there must be mass, popular, peaceful support of both. The American people must be seen and heard - they will ultimately be determinative. — Eric Holder (@EricHolder) December 17, 2017

The president rejected the idea that he was planning to fire Mueller, telling reporters on Sunday, “No, I’m not.” Yet in the same exchange with reporters, he expressed dismay that Mueller’s investigation had acquired thousands of emails from the presidential transition team, which a Trump lawyer alleges were “unlawfully produced.” “Not looking good, it’s not looking good,” the president said. “It’s quite sad to see that, my people were very upset about it.”



Firing Mueller would created a legitimacy crisis, which is why liberals groups like Move On are justified in taking Holder’s “RED LINE” comment to heart by organizing protests in the event that Mueller is kicked out. Still, Trump’s comments, as well as the behavior of his legal team and his allies in the media, point to a path that Trump could pursue that is equally dangerous and more likely to be successful. Firing Mueller outright risks a backlash. The shrewder strategy would be to delegitimize and sabotage him instead.

As Mike Allen noted in Axios, “the Trump lawyers’ strategy is to cooperate with Mueller on the inside game. The outside chorus tries to rough up Mueller, in case his findings are trouble for POTUS.” That chorus has also obsessed over two FBI agents, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who were removed from the investigation over anti-Trump text messages. “Is the FBI part of the resistance?” Fox News host Jesse Watters asked on Sunday. “It’s like the FBI had Michael Moore investigating the president of the United States.”

The propaganda campaign being carried out by Pirro and her ilk doesn’t have to culminate in Mueller being kicked out. It will be just as successful if it convinces the Republican base that the Mueller investigation is a witch hunt. In that eventuality, Republican lawmakers would have perfect cover for not holding Trump accountable, for casting doubt on Mueller’s finding, for shutting down their own investigation, and for opposing any impeachment move.