I should start here with a production note. We recorded parts of this episode about the power of the

president to hire and fire people as described in the US Constitution four separate times. Why did we have to do it so many times? Because the president

kept firing people. This probably shouldn't be surprising because in addition to

being a real estate tycoon he was most famous for being a reality TV star whose catch phrase was,

you were fired. But still, each firing had its own implications and they changed the scope of the

discussion about the appointments clause of the Constitution and the removal power of the executive just a little bit, so we kept coming back to it and talking more.

With Comi on everyone's mind and insiders discussing the possibility of Trump firing special counsel Robert Mueller,

that's the person who's leading the Russia investigation,

this seemed like a good time to talk about appointments and removals.

But we're going to turn back the clock to a more innocent time when Trump had only fired Sally Yates.

When Trump became president, Sally Yates was the acting or temporary attorney

general. That's the head law enforcement official for the federal government.

That's because Jeff Sessions hadn't yet been confirmed as attorney general.

At the end of January, Trump fired then acting attorney general Yates shortly after she had ordered the

Department of Justice not to defend the first executive order trumpet sign

that's the one that banned citizens from seven majority Muslim countries

from entering the United States.

That order, of course, was blocked by district courts

who ruled against it.

At the beginning of March, Trump asked 46 United States

attorneys.

These are the chief regional federal prosecutors

...