If Sessions is fired, then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the current No. 2 at the Justice Department, would automatically take his place – at least, according to statute and the President’s own executive order detailing the succession plan from March.
Yes – the President doesn’t have to follow the usual course, but this is where things could get tricky.
Another option is for Trump to announce a replacement for Sessions during the next Senate recess – a so-called “recess appointment” who could then serve until the end of the next congress.
Whitaker, too, shied away from calling for Mueller’s firing in his public comments on the matter last year. What he suggested was that Sessions’s eventual replacement should seem to let the special counsel continue — but that he should make behind the scenes moves to interfere with things.
Finally, though things may look ominous, it is also possible that in the end Whitaker will let Mueller’s work largely continue — whether due to fear of exposing himself to obstruction charges, fear of political blowback from Capitol Hill, or because the investigation is just too far along to derail at this point.