Lieu: There will be ‘widespread civil unrest’ if Trump fires Mueller

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) issued a stark warning to President Trump on Monday evening, saying there would be “widespread civic unrest” if he moved to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. 

“If the president does go ahead and fire Robert Mueller, we would have people take to the streets. I believe there would be widespread civil unrest because Americans believe the rule of law is paramount,” Lieu told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes.  

{mosads}”I think you’re going to have protests, and marches, and rallies, and sit-ins. I believe Americans would not stand for the firing of Robert Mueller,” he said. 

“The president hasn’t been able to point to a single thing that Robert Mueller has done wrong. There is no basis to fire him. And he would have to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein first in order to fire Robert Mueller.”

The president has ramped up his attacks on Mueller’s probe into Russia’s election interference, mentioning him for the first time by name in a tweet over the weekend.  

The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime. It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018

Trump has denied any collusion between his campaign and the Kremlin, and has referred to the probes investigating the matter as a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

The Washington Post reported on Monday that Trump’s lawyers were aiming to limit the scope of a potential interview with Mueller amid fears the president would be left in a vulnerable position.