Stephanopoulos: 'Special Counsels Can Go in Any Direction They Want'

President Donald Trump doesn't seem to understand that special counsel Robert Mueller isn't limited in his investigation, according to ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.

"Having worked in a White House that was under the thumb of the special counsel for several years, they have no idea," the former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton told David Axelrod on an episode of "The Axe Files" released Monday.

Stephanopoulos explained that special counsel Kenneth Starr began officially investigating Clinton "before Monica Lewinsky came into the White House," but "that's what ended up being what Bill Clinton got impeached over."

He added, "Special counsels can go in any direction they want."

The ABC anchor also noted that if Trump orders that Mueller be fired, his presidency would end similarly to Richard Nixon's.

"It brings you back to the Watergate times and the Saturday Night Massacre," he said, referring to Nixon's ordering the firing of special counsel Archibald Cox, which caused the president's attorney general and deputy attorney general to resign.

"I can't imagine a president surviving a move like that," Stephanopoulos said, adding that he thinks Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would sooner quit than obey orders to fire Mueller.

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