WASHINGTON – If President Trump ordered a senior government official to support the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller, how should that person respond?
Adm. Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, answered my question about that onstage last week at the Aspen Security Forum. He began with the usual caveat that he wouldn’t answer a hypothetical, but then offered a comment that brought spontaneous applause:
“I will not violate the oath I have taken in my 36 years as a commissioned officer.” He said he regularly reminds NSA employees to recall their own oaths and ask themselves: “Why are we here? What are we about? What is it that we are defending? I won’t sacrifice that for anyone.”
In Trump’s Washington, it’s a fact of life that officials must now weigh whether they would follow presidential orders that might be improper or illegal. Officials mull (and occasionally, discuss quietly) what to do if a presidential request for loyalty conflicts with their sense of right and wrong.
A possible order to fire Mueller is an imminent concern, but there are other tests of loyalty and conscience that could arise with this impulsive, policy-by-Twitter chief executive.