No end is in sight for special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of President Trump and the Trump campaign for possible involvement with so-called Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.

It is past time to ask a vital question: Can anyone seriously contend that a member of the executive branch holding an inferior office – one not requiring a presidential nomination and Senate confirmation – can investigate the president of the United States for possibly engaging in illegal activities?

No. By no stretch of the imagination are the powers of Mueller’s office to investigate the president for misdeeds those of an inferior office. It is ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

In providing for the appointment without a presidential nomination and Senate confirmation of inferior officers of the executive branch, Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution allowed for the staffing of everyday bureaucrats, not the investigation of a president or other momentous decisions.

When the Founders wrote about “inferior officers,” they meant inferior. Mueller’s special counsel duties are clearly not those of an inferior office in any meaningful sense of the term. Because he was not nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, his appointment was unconstitutional. His investigation, therefore, is also unconstitutional.

This does not mean that the president is above the law, only that the law (the special counsel law as applied in this instance) is not above the Constitution. Mueller should be fired, by the Supreme Court if not by the president.

If the U.S. House of Representatives wants to continue Mueller’s investigation into Russian “meddling” and suspected Trump campaign collusion, they should do so under its constitutionally granted impeachment power. At least such an investigation can be held democratically accountable, whereas the current, supposedly independent investigation is democratically unaccountable and irresponsible.

James Campbell

Peaks Island