President Trump said he does not plan to fire Rod Rosenstein, the Justice Department official in charge of the federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, Reuters reports.
Said Trump: “I get along very well with him.”
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and President Trump “planned to travel to Florida together on Air Force One Monday morning, a week and a half after the two were scheduled to discuss remarks Mr. Rosenstein had made about the president’s fitness for office and an offer to secretly tape conversations with him,” the New York Times reports.
n the days following those revelations, Mr. Rosenstein told senior White House officials, including John F. Kelly, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, that he wished to resign.
“President Trump’s highly anticipated meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein could be delayed again,” the Washington Post reports.
“White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sunday that Trump and Rosenstein could meet this week — a date hasn’t been set — but she added that the meeting could be delayed again given the continued focus on Kavanaugh’s nomination.”
Jonathan Swan: “Shortly after Axios published its story this morning, saying that Rod Rosenstein had ‘verbally resigned’ to John Kelly, Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores drafted a statement that would announce Rosenstein’s departure, written in the voice of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.”
Gabriel Sherman: “For all the morning’s madness, there may have been an underlying logic. Over the weekend, as Brett Kavanaugh’s prospects appeared increasingly imperiled, Trump faced two tactical options, both of them fraught. One was to cut Kavanaugh loose. But he was also looking for ways to dramatically shift the news cycle away from his embattled Supreme Court nominee. According to a source briefed on Trump’s thinking, Trump decided that firing Rosenstein would knock Kavanaugh out of the news, potentially saving his nomination and Republicans’ chances for keeping the Senate… The leak about Rosenstein’s resignation could have been the result, and it certainly had the desired effect of driving Kavanaugh out of the news for a few hours.”
“The confusion surrounding Rosenstein’s tenure may not give Kavanaugh a reprieve. In public, Trump continues to voice support for his embattled Supreme Court nominee… But in private, Trump is growing increasingly frustrated by being mired in a deteriorating political situation beyond his control. On Monday morning, a Republican briefed on Trump’s thinking said the president has been considering pulling Kavanaugh’s nomination.”
“According to the source, Trump allies are imploring him to cut Kavanaugh loose for the sake of saving Republicans’ electoral chances in the midterms.”
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “will stay in the job for now, but will meet with the president on Thursday, after officials described a series of private discussions that pointed to his resignation or firing,” the Washington Post reports.
“The announcement capped a tense few hours after officials said Rosenstein had told White House officials over the weekend that he was willing to resign in the wake of revelations that he once suggested secretly recording President Trump.”
New York Times: “A departure by Mr. Rosenstein would likely thrust the administration into further turmoil just weeks before November’s midterm elections.”
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has verbally resigned to Chief of Staff John Kelly in anticipation of being fired by President Trump, Axios reports.
Per a second source with direct knowledge: “He’s expecting to be fired,” so he plans to step down.
Washington Post: “One Trump adviser said the president has not been pressuring Rosenstein to leave the job, but his resignation had been a topic of private discussions all weekend. The person said Rosenstein had expressed to others that he should resign because he ‘felt very compromised’ and was now a potential witness in the Russia probe rather than a supervisor.”
New York Times: “It was also unclear whether Mr. Trump would accept a resignation that would likely thrust the administration into further turmoil just weeks before November’s midterm elections.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “hinted that Rod Rosenstein could be in jeopardy, after reports on Friday said the deputy attorney general discussed wearing a wire to record conversations with Donald Trump and the possibility of invoking the 25th amendment to remove the president,” the Guardian reports.
Said Pompeo: “If you can’t be on the team, if you’re not supporting this mission, then maybe you just ought to find something else to do.”
Asked by Fox News host Chris Wallace if Rosenstein’s reported behavior would constitute “being on the team,” Pompeo said: “Not remotely.”
Politico: Trumpworld divided on Rosenstein – not whether to fire him, but when.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggested secretly recording President Trump “to expose the chaos consuming the administration, and he discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office for being unfit,” the New York Times reports.
Rosenstein “made these suggestions in the spring of 2017 when Trump’s firing of James Comey as FBI Director plunged the White House into turmoil. Over the ensuing days, the president divulged classified intelligence to Russians in the Oval Office, and revelations emerged that Trump had asked Comey to pledge loyalty and end an investigation into a senior aide.”
“The extreme suggestions show Rosenstein’s state of mind in the disorienting days that followed Comey’s dismissal.”
ABC News and the Washington Post report that the details of Rosenstein’s discussions are included in the memos of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
In a secret recording obtained by NBC News, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) says the impeachment effort of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was halted because Republicans want to wait until Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed.
Said Nunes: “The Senate would have to drop everything they’re doing… and start with impeachment on Rosenstein. And then take the risk of not getting Kavanaugh confirmed. So it’s not a matter that any of us like Rosenstein. It’s a matter of, it’s a matter of timing.”
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — who President Trump has previously publicly considered firing — has now reportedly developed a “strong rapport” with the president, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Trump is said to call Rosenstein to discuss issues beyond the investigation such as immigration, and Rosenstein visits the White House as often as three times a week.
When asked for a comment on their relationship, Trump said: “It’s fantastic!”
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said “the Justice Department needs to comply with congressional requests for documents. But he said the response from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein does not rise to the level of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ that would warrant impeachment,” the Washington Post reports.
However, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) said that he supports the effort calling it “leverage” to get the Justice Department to provide Congress with more documents related to the Russia probe.
“House conservatives are preparing a new push to oust Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, according to three conservative Capitol Hill sources — putting the finishing touches on an impeachment filing even as Rosenstein announced the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for interfering in the 2016 election,” Politico reports.
“Democrats contend Republicans’ fixation on Rosenstein is really an effort to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller, who reports to Rosenstein and has been making inroads in his investigation of the Russian election interference plot.”
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s “ongoing battle with House Republicans reached new heights Tuesday, as the No. 2 senior leader of the Justice Department plans to call on the House to investigate its own committee staff,” CNN reports.
“Rosenstein has butted heads with House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes for months over a subpoena for documents related to the Russia investigation, but the battle spilled out into public view Tuesday after Fox News reported staff on the committee felt ‘personally attacked’ at a meeting with Rosenstein in January.”
Stephen Bannon predicts that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein could be fired “very shortly,” in an interview that will be broadcast Wednesday evening in the United Kingdom, The Hill reports.
Bannon said that Rosenstein “either…is going to take the direct order of the President of the United States or I think Rosenstein will be fired.”
In response to President Trump demanding an investigation into whether the FBI “infiltrated” his presidential campaign, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “asked its internal watchdog, the Office of the Inspector General, to expand its current inquiry into the surveillance of a former Trump campaign official to include the questions raised by the president,” the New York Times reports.
Said Rosenstein: “If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action.”
“By handing the question to the inspector general, Mr. Rosenstein appeared to be trying to thread the needle, giving the president what he said he wanted without fully bowing to his demands. But it was not clear whether that would satisfy Mr. Trump, who in February complained that it was ‘disgraceful’ for the Justice Department to hand over the surveillance investigation to an inspector general who lacks prosecutorial power, saying it would ‘take forever’ and suggesting that he was ‘an Obama guy.'”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Wonk Wire, Political Job Hunt and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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