If Trump fires Mueller (or orders his firing)

First, as noted above, what should Rod Rosenstein do if Trump orders him to fire Mueller?

It is a matter of Rosenstein’s judgment–about whether he is convinced by Trump’s reasons for the firing, about his relationship to the president and his view of the president’s prerogatives in this situation, about how he characterizes the overall situation he finds himself in, about the actions he is or isn’t willing to associate himself with, and about what his sense of integrity demands. At least two factors lead me to think Rosenstein will resign: (1) He has already seen his reputation soiled and his judgment questioned by the manner in which the President used his memorandum as a pretext for firing Comey; and (2) He appointed Mueller to great bipartisan acclaim, and he presumably did due diligence and convinced himself that Mueller was fit to serve. Unless Trump comes up with a clinching reason for firing Mueller that is now hard to fathom, it is hard to see how Rosenstein carries out the the order. He will resign.

Second, what happens as Trump moves down the line of succession? Newly confirmed Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand would be next, and then (I think) would come acting AAG for the National Security Division Dana Boente, who is not confirmed for that job but who has been Senate-confirmed as a U.S. Attorney. What a spot these two would be in! Would they carry out the President’s order, or resign? It might seem obvious that they would resign because they would not want to carry out or associate themselves with what Rosenstein would have thought, by hypothesis, was a bad faith or at least unacceptable order by the President. I think this is what would happen. But at some point down the chain of command a countervailing principle, call it the Bork principle, arises: stability in the Justice Department and in law enforcement more generally.