There were differing accounts of whether the overseer of the Mueller probe would resign or insist that President Donald Trump fire him.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, whose job is not confirmed as active or expired, will join President Donald Trump on Thursday according to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Monday.
Rosenstein may even learn his fate during a visit to the White House on Monday, but, with Trump in New York for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, any determination on his future was halted. Rosenstein was in attendance on a regular basis at the White House and was still deputy attorney general when he left at midday.
The deputy attorney general explained on Saturday — with White House Counsel Don McGahn — that either Rosenstein suggested resigning or McGahn said he should consider leaving, NBC News’ Pete Williams reported.
Rosenstein’s job status became a concern after information surfaced last week that he had said he was wearing a wire to record President Trump and that he possibily organized a push to eject the president through a process created in the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.
“At the request of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he and President Trump had an extended conversation to discuss the recent news stories,” Sanders said in a statement. “They will meet on Thursday when the president returns to Washington, D.C.”
Thursday is also a date that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexually assaulting her when they were in high school, are set to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. All allegations have been denied by Kavanaugh.
Rosenstein’s leaving would create doubt around the future of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. This includes whether Mueller’s pending report is effectively brought to Congress and made public. President Trump has lfrustrated with Rosenstein over that targeting process and the Justice Department’s inaction for investigating agency officials whom the president think worked together against him.
Jay Sekulow who is one of the President’s personal lawyers, said on his radio show Monday that Rosenstein’s removal would demand a revision of the special counsel’s probe.
“I think it’s really important that there be a step back taken here, and a review, and I think it’s a review that has to be thorough and complete, and a review that has to include an investigation of what has transpired,” Sekulow said, terming such a reassessment “a timeout on this inquiry.”
A new deputy attorney general should “look at all of these allegations that are both surrounding this inquiry, and that initiated this inquiry, including the Christopher Steele dossier, and the appointment of the special counsel, and how all that plays in,” he said.
But it was the discussion of a wire and the 25th Amendment, first reported by The New York Times, that formed the proximate cause for Trump to justify forcing Rosenstein out.
Rosenstein said Friday that there is “no basis” for finding the president unfit to serve and that he never pursued any effort to record Trump.
Two administration officials told reporters from NBC News Friday that Rosenstein had discussed a wire in jest, but those who have talked about the event with then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who was in the meeting in question with Rosenstein, explain he recalls the deputy attorney general being affirmed about quietly recording discussions with the President.
“Certainly it’s being looked at in terms of what took place, if anything took place,” President Trump said. “I’ll make a determination sometime later but I don’t have the facts.”
“Congress must take immediate steps to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law — which protects all of us — by shielding the Mueller investigation against President Trump’s obstruction,” Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., said in a statement released while Rosenstein’s job status was still up in the air.
McCabe, who was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, made a similar appeal.
“There is nothing more important to the integrity of law enforcement and the rule of law than protecting the investigation of Special Counsel Mueller,” he 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. … If the rumors of Deputy AG’s Rosenstein’s departure are true, I am deeply concerned that it puts that investigation at risk.”
