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Director Andrew McCabe would confirm statements made by James Comey about how the president had tried to intimidate him. In response, the President began a campaign of harassment, threats, and intimidation against McCabe. On March 16, 2018, after McCabe testified before Congress, the President, in retaliation, caused his dismissal and the loss of his pension. The Mueller team may have a high hurdle in convincing Rosenstein to approve the indictment. The Department of Justice's standing view precludes charging a sitting president with a crime. This is based on an opinion written by the Office of Legal Counsel in the Watergate era and recently expressed in hyperbolic terms by Giuliani: the President could kill James Comey if he wanted to without fear of prosecution. But, according to several former DO] lawyers, Rosenstein in this circumstance may have the power to override the Office of Legal Counsel opinion. In effect, finding that the standing opinion does not cover the present circumstances. In one view—and in the suspicion of some in the White House—he may have already authorized Mueller to proceed with the indictment. The White House has made the argument—supported in many television appearances by Trump legal surrogate, Alan Dershowitz— that a president cannot be prosecuted for exercising his constitutional prerogatives, even if those actions foster a crime; the President, as the ultimate federal office, and the nation's chief law enforcement officer, enjoys nearly unfettered latitude in how he carries out his duties. "I don't think you are going to find a court who will not see the president's role as unique," said one White House advisor. "The Mueller theories are wishful thinking." An indictment for obstruction of Justice is described in similar ways by both Mueller and White House insiders: it puts the President's public behavior on trial. The nature of that behavior, for the Mueller team, is corrupt; this, according to the White House, is how voters elected the President to behave. The Special Counsel seems less worried about its legal position than it does about it’s existential one—continuing to anticipate how the President might use his authority to move against it. According to insiders, the team has meticulously prepared for most contingencies it might face from an impulsive president who feels HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_030251