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1. He’s a Movement Conservative Through and Through

Francisco previously clerked for late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia before a couple years in private practice. He later worked on George W. Bush‘s legal team during the controversial Florida recount following the contentious 2000 presidential election. After that, Francisco bounced around the second Bush White House. In 2001, he was appointed as an associate counsel to President Bush under the Office of Counsel to the President. In 2003, Francisco worked in the Department of Justice via the Office of Legal Counsel for the Deputy Assistant Attorney General.

In 2005, Francisco moved back to private practice at the Washington, D.C. big law firm of Jones Day. While there, he appeared before the Supreme Court several times. His most consequential case, in precedential terms, was McDonnell v. United States wherein Francisco distinguished himself by having former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell‘s corruption conviction overturned by the nation’s high court–a case widely considered to have made it all but impossible to charge executives with corruption.

2. He’s No Great Fan of Special Counsel Investigations

One of the George W. Bush administration’s biggest scandals was the politically motivated firing of nine U.S. attorneys. Francisco was long gone and in private practice by then, but turned up at a House committee hearing in order to give testimony in favor of the administration. When pressed as to whether it would be appropriate for the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Bush administration, Francisco said, “I don’t think it would be appropriate.”

He continued, saying, “My own personal belief is that when you hand these issues off to the career prosecutors in the public integrity sections in the U.S. attorneys’ offices in the Department of Justice, those attorneys are generally better able to assess whether a case should be pursued.”

3. He’s Very Much a Fan of Vast Executive Power

Francisco believes the Constitution empowers the president to directly hire-and-fire each and every official who has power via the executive branch. Appearing before the Supreme Court in February of this year during a case regarding administrative law judges at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Francisco argued, “The president’s constitutional responsibility to faithfully execute the laws requires adequate authority to remove subordinate officers.”

The solicitor general continued, “The framers understood the close connection between the president’s ability to discharge his responsibilities as head of the executive branch and his control over its personnel…The president’s ability to execute the law is thus inextricably linked to his authority to hold his subordinates accountable for their conduct.”

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/if-rosenstein-is-fired-this-is-who-will-be-in-charge-of-robert-mueller/