Administration aide says there's 'no conversation' in the White House about firing Mueller


White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short had a testy conversation with NBC's Chuck Todd on Meet the Press Sunday in which he maintained the Trump administration is not internally debating whether to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller from his probe into Russian election meddling efforts.
Todd raised the subject of emails the Trump transition team claims Mueller obtained unlawfully, but Short pleaded ignorance of the specifics of that situation. Instead, he argued the Russia investigation in general has been wasteful and unnecessary, which led to this rapid-fire exchange:
Todd: Okay, but is the president going to continue to cooperate?
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Short: He is continuing to cooperate —
Todd: Or is he setting the stage —
Short: No, come on, Chuck.
Todd: For firing Bob Mueller?
Short: No, there's no conversation —
Todd: There's no way he's going to fire him?
Short: There's no conversation about that whatsoever in the White House, Chuck.
Todd: None whatsoever?
Short: You guys keep bringing that up. We have continued to cooperate in every single possible way with that investigation. [NBC]
Mueller's office denied accessing the emails unlawfully, stating it has always "secured either the account owner's consent or appropriate criminal process" when obtaining communications for the investigation. Watch an excerpt of the NBC interview below. Bonnie Kristian
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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