When Donald Trump gave James Comey his pink slip, both the president and his allies were quick to jump on the former FBI Director in an attempt to undermine his reputation. In the weeks since, they've set up a credibility contest between the two, which seems unwise considering the president's track record. Here's another bad idea: Firing the special prosecutor whom the deputy attorney general was essentially forced to appoint after the president fired the FBI director. But that's exactly what Trump ally Christopher Ruddy of right-wing Newsmax suggested yesterday.

Of course, Trump can't fire the special counsel himself. He'd have to demand that Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein do it, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from the investigation. For context, that's exactly what President Nixon tried to do in what became the Saturday Night Massacre, when his attorney general and deputy AG both resigned rather than fire the special prosecutor looking into Watergate. Nixon eventually got Robert Bork to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, but not before the scandal kicked into high gear.

If pulling a Watergate seems like a strange political strategy, Trump ally Newt Gingrich has a handy solution: Get Republicans in Congress to take care of Mueller. Gingrich explained that in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America today, and he somehow managed to work in Kathy Griffin and Shakespeare in the Park:

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Just one month ago, Gingrich was praising Mueller as "a superb choice" whose "reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity." Gingrich now claims Mueller has staffed his team with a bunch of "bad people" who are all partisan Democratic hacks. It was not immediately clear what case he was referencing or which members of the team he was referring to, but Gingrich added "they were reprimanded by the Supreme Court for hiding evidence."

However, many in Mueller's squad are career prosecutors with the Department of Justice—like Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben, whom The Washington Post calls "the department's go-to lawyer on criminal justice cases" who is "highly respected by Democrats and Republicans because of his encyclopedic knowledge of criminal law." Then there's Andrew Weissmann, the chief of the Justice Department's fraud section who led corruption investigations into Volkswagen and Enron. Other team members come from private practice.

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Gingrich is correct that some members of the team have donated to Democratic candidates—although it's three, not four—but that did not raise a red flag with ethics officials. (Neither, it should be said, did the fact that the law firm Mueller left for this gig represents former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his senior adviser, Jared Kushner. But that doesn't exactly help Gingrich's case.) Jeannie Rhee, who joined Mueller's team from that same private firm, WilmerHale, once defended the Clinton Foundation at the firm, but that also does not seem to have raised ethics concerns. And, as Stephanopoulos rightly pointed out, Ken Starr—who has also praised Mueller and his team—had given plenty of money to Republican candidates when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich and his Republican caucus tapped Starr to lead the investigation into President Bill Clinton. Gingrich had no problem with it then.

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Does Newt know we can see old tweets? pic.twitter.com/rzU7ah8pNG — Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) June 12, 2017

That's where Gingrich's hypocrisy began to threaten the contours of reality. He explained it's "a different world" now because things are so intensely partisan in the country. As evidence, he cited Kathy Griffin's reprehensible "beheading" act and the headline-making production of Julius Caesar which he was careful to note took place in New York City. This run features a likeness of Trump as Caesar and, much like every production of Julius Caesar for the last 400 years, involved Caesar getting stabbed to death. What never seems to get mentioned is that the same play featured a likeness of President Barack Obama in 2012, and that Julius Caesar is about how assassination is always a bad idea in a democracy.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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