WASHINGTON — Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein headed to the White House Monday expecting to lose his job, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press. The development followed revelations that Rosenstein had made comments critical of President Donald Trump, including discussing possibly secretly recording the president and invoking the Constitution to have the Cabinet remove him from office.
Trump himself was in New York for a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly.
It was not immediately clear whether Rosenstein intended to resign at the White House over the commotion caused by his remarks last year, or if was simply expecting that he would be fired. That distinction matters in terms of whether the president would be able to name an interim successor of his own choosing.
Regardless, any termination or resignation would have immediate implications for special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible collaboration between Russia and the Trump campaign before the 2016 election. Rosenstein appointed Mueller and oversees his investigation.
Mueller Declines to Comment
Solicitor General Noel Francisco, the highest-ranking Senate confirmed official below Rosenstein in the Justice Department, would take control of the Mueller investigation. A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment.
The reports about Rosenstein add to the turmoil roiling the administration, just six weeks before midterm elections with control of Congress at stake. In addition to dealing with the Mueller investigation, the White House is also struggling to win confirmation of its Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations.
Trump had previously floated the idea firing Rosenstein in April after FBI raids of the office and home of the president’s longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, who has since pleaded guilty to several felonies and taken part in interviews with Mueller’s team.
NY Times Reports Rosenstein’s Comments
But the latest move comes after a New York Times report of Rosenstein comments in May 2017. That report and an unsigned opinion piece by a senior official in the Republican administration played to some of the president’s concerns about a secret “Deep State” trying to undermine him from within the government.
The administration official, whom Trump has called for a federal investigation to unmask, wrote that there was a group of officials working to safeguard the country from the president’s most dangerous impulses. And Trump’s behavior had prompted “whispers” in the Cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, a move that was backed away from due to concerns it would “precipitate a constitutional crisis,” the writer said.
In Rosenstein’s case, he has said that the Times report was inaccurate and said it was based on “biased” anonymous sources “advancing their own personal agenda.”
“Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment,” Rosenstein said.
The Justice Department also released a statement from a person who said Rosenstein’s recording comment was meant sarcastically.
If Rosenstein were to resign instead of being fired, it would allow the White House to use the Vacancies Reform Act to fill his role. The federal provision allows the president to circumvent the existing agency line of succession in most instances. But experts doubt it can be applied when the president creates the vacancy, by firing the officeholder.
As of Sunday, Trump said he had not decided what to do about Rosenstein. He angrily asked confidants, both inside and outside the White House, how to respond. He received mixed messages. Some urged him to fire Rosenstein. Others suggested restraint while seeing if the report was incorrect or if it was planted by some adversary.
Congressional Republicans, Democrats, and some Trump aides have warned for months that the president shouldn’t fire Rosenstein, saying such a move could lead to impeachment proceedings if the Democrats retake the House in the upcoming midterms.
McCabe Says Mueller Probe Would be at Risk
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose private memos document comments made by Rosenstein, said Monday he was concerned that a Rosenstein departure would put the investigation at risk.
“There is nothing more important to the integrity of law enforcement and the rule of law than protecting the investigation of special counsel Mueller,” McCabe said in a statement. “I sacrificed personally and professionally to help put the investigation on a proper course and subsequently made every effort to protect it.”
Rosenstein appointed Mueller in May of last year after Sessions, who ordinarily would have overseen the investigation, recused himself because of his close involvement in the Trump campaign.
Those developments came one week after Rosenstein laid the groundwork for the firing of Comey by writing a memo that criticized Comey’s handling of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server. The White House initially held up that memo as justification for Comey’s firing, though Trump himself has said he was thinking about “this Russia thing” when he made his move.
As deputy attorney general, Rosenstein has made two public announcements of indictments brought by the special counsel — one against Russians accused of hacking into Democratic email accounts, the other against Russians accused of running a social media troll farm to sway public opinion.
From the start, the investigation has been wide-ranging. It has examined, among other things, consulting work of top Trump campaign aides, interactions during the transition period between Trump officials and foreign government representatives and efforts by Russia to meddle in the 2016 presidential election on Trump’s behalf.
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