Even if President Donald Trump were to successfully navigate the legal landmines to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, doing so would not derail the Russia investigation, experts say.
Chopping off the head of the Russia probe would likely sprout several entities — some already tangentially involved — to pick up where Mueller left off.
"Bureaucracies are complicated animals and this one has metastasized beyond the Mueller investigation," Benjamin Wittes, a Brookings Institution senior fellow, told Politico. "That's the thing that functionally protects the investigation."
"Those career people won't pack up their bags and go away," former federal prosecutor Gene Rossi told Politico. "And if a certain president thinks Mueller is aggressive, the (Department of Justice's) Public Integrity Division would not let this go."
Earlier this week, former FBI Director James Comey said firing Mueller "would be utterly ineffective in practice," adding that he "could imagine U.S. attorney's offices picking up pieces of it, different FBI offices picking up pieces of it."
The Southern District of New York executed last month's raid on Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen; New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been working with the Mueller probe since last year on the Paul Manafort case, Politico reports.
All of that doesn't mean the president won't attempt to fire Mueller; the question becomes, will he try? Experts continue to debate whether — and how — Trump could go about doing that.
"I think the better argument, though, is that he is bound by the regulation in place governing the appointment of Mr. Mueller, that he doesn't have unfettered discretion to do whatever he wants. But there is disagreement over that," former federal prosecutor Scott L. Fredericksen told CBS News.
Trump staked out his position in a tweet Wednesday morning:
The president was referencing an interview diGenova, lawyer to Trump in an unofficial capacity, gave on SiriusXM on Tuesday.