Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has ultimate authority over the special counsel’s probe of Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election, has privately acknowledged to colleagues that he may have to recuse himself from the matter, which he took charge of only after Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ own recusal, sources tell ABC News.

Those private remarks “are significant because they reflect the widening nature of the federal probe, which now includes a preliminary inquiry into whether President Donald Trump attempted to obstruct justice when he allegedly tried to curtail the probe and then fired James Comey as FBI director.”

Benjamin Wittes: “The trouble is that while Rosenstein got what he wanted, Trump’s idea of correcting the record was to say publicly exactly the thing about a law enforcement officer that makes his continued service in office impossible: That Trump had used his deputy attorney general as window dressing on a pre-cooked political decision to shut down an investigation involving himself, a decision for which he needed the patina of a high-minded rationale.”

“Once the President has said this about you—a law enforcement officer who works for him and who promised the Senate in confirmation hearings you would show independence—you have nothing left. These are the costs of working for Trump, and it took Rosenstein only two weeks to pay them.”

“The only decent course now is to name a special prosecutor and then resign.”

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has agreed to brief the full Senate next week on the firing of FBI Director James Comey, CNN reports.

Axios: “No word if the briefing will be open or closed, but expect Senate Dems to pounce on Comey’s firing and attempt to gain momentum in their push for a special counsel for the Russia investigation.”

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein pressed White House counsel Don McGahn “to correct what he felt was an inaccurate White House depiction of the events surrounding FBI Director James Comey’s firing,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Mr. Rosenstein left the impression that he couldn’t work in an environment where facts weren’t accurately reported… The deputy attorney general objected to statements by White House aides citing Mr. Rosenstein’s critical assessment of Mr.Comey’s job performance to justify the firing.”

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “threatened to resign after the narrative emerging from the White House on Tuesday evening cast him as a prime mover of the decision to fire Comey and that the president acted only on his recommendation,” the Washington Post reports.