CNN's Bharara slams Sarah Sanders' claim Trump can fire Mueller: 'She says things that are demonstrably false'

After White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Tuesday that President Donald Trump "has the power" to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara — himself fired by the president last year — told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that her comment is incorrect.

"Sarah Sanders says a lot of things that are demonstrably false," Bharara told the CNN host shortly before news broke that Trump tried for a second time to fire Mueller last December.

"The special counsel may be disciplined or removed from office only by the personal action of the attorney general," the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said, reading from the Justice Department's regulation on independent counsels. "The attorney general may remove the special counsel for a variety of reasons and they include misconduct, incapacity, conflict of interest or other good cause and has to put the reasons in writing."

"The regulation is clear in affording the special counsel some protection of measure of the whims of even someone like the president," Bharara concluded. "That language is about as clear as it can get. If Sarah Sanders and others would take the time to read it, they would understand."

Watch below, via CNN: