Someone Please Explain...Why?

[busterbrown]

All last Night I was hearing on MSNBC was the fact that no matter what the investigation of Cohen would not be effected if Trump tried to fire Mueller or anyone else... According to several knowledgable guests on MSNBC ..no matter who Trump fires these are investigations which are now in pipelines which are independently being run by regional agents ..

Do I have this right?

[Brainstormy]

1. yes, because the Cohen deal

is FBI. separate investigation.

[Caliman73]

2. For the most part, yes.

Mueller has empowered grand juries in the states where he is investigating and has been working with the Attorney Generals in, I believe DC, Virginia, and New York regarding the investigation. The Federal probe may be stymied, but the State investigations would likely continue and Trump has no pardon power for State charges.

[Ilsa]

3. The Southern District of NY is handling this. Their

federal prosecutor, a trump appointee, Berman, to replace Preet Bharara I think, is investigating this now that Mueller referred it to them because what they saw was out of their scope of investigation.

On edit: Berman is recused.

[lapfog_1]

4. yes, that is correct

however, those investigations may be much more limited in scope and resources than the special counsel.

[shraby]

5. Also the people on Mueller's team are all prosecutors, so the parade will march on just without him.

[manor321]

6. Yes and no

Really it is just speculation. They could easily find evidence of crimes that would be referred back to Mueller, so that part of the investigation would be affected.

[niyad]

9. welcome to du

[wishstar]

7. Yes, and if the Feds in NY find something of interest to Mueller probe they can report back to him

If the Feds in Southern District of NY find evidence of criminality involving Russia that is not related to their specific probe or probes that appear to be related to Mueller's Russian investigation they can refer that evidence back to Mueller. I heard that on MSNBC today from former Congresswoman and NY DA Elizabeth Holtzman of NY who was involved in Watergate proceedings.

[IllinoisBirdWatcher]

8. The Watergate staff had multiple data backups off-site and

that was before personal computers.

During an interview last night one of them explained how they smuggled document copies out of their offices and then commented that it would be so much easier now with flash drives.