Flake: I’d back impeaching Trump if he fired Mueller ‘without cause’

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday that he would support impeaching President Trump if the president fired special counsel Robert Mueller “without cause.”

Flake told The Washington Post that Trump firing Mueller would “force the Congress to take the only remedy that Congress can take.”

“To remind the president of that is the best way to keep him from going down that road. To fire Mueller without cause, I don’t know if there is any other remedy left to the legislative branch,” he said.

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The Republican added that Trump firing Mueller without cause would be reminiscent of President Nixon firing the special prosecutor during the Watergate scandal.

“[Nixon] left before impeachment came, but that was the remedy then and that would be the remedy now,” Flake told the Post.

“The president needs to be reminded that while there is nothing the House and the Senate can do constitutionally to prevent the president from moving forward, our remedy is on the other side. And the firing of a special prosecutor without cause will, as Lindsey Graham said, prompt that remedy,” the senator said in his interview.

Flake echoed that same message in a tweet Tuesday.

We are begging the president not to fire the special counsel. Don’t create a constitutional crisis. Congress cannot preempt such a firing. Our only constitutional remedy is after the fact, through impeachment. No one wants that outcome. Mr. President, please don’t go there.

— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) March 20, 2018

The Arizona senator made the comments just hours after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that Trump firing Mueller without cause would be an impeachable offense.

“I think what the president will have done is stopped an investigation in whether or not his campaign colluded with the Russians, what effect the Russians had on the 2016 campaign. I can’t see it being anything other than a corrupt purpose,” Graham said. 

Speculation that Trump could fire Mueller has risen after Trump attacked the special counsel by name for the first time over the weekend.

The White House has denied that Trump is considering firing Mueller.