PART 2:
A person close to Rosenstein said the deputy attorney general — in his dealings with Trump and others — sought to protect the investigation.
Then-White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, left, and Rosenstein step off Air Force One in Orlando in October. (Alex Brandon/AP)
'I don't want to go out with a tweet'
Rosenstein’s status in the eyes of the White House has been fluid, but it was perhaps never more tenuous than after the New York Times reported he had suggested wearing a wire to record Trump.
After the article was published, Kelly summoned Rosenstein to discuss it. The deputy attorney general would not address specific details of the article but told Kelly he was willing to step aside, two people familiar with the matter said. He talked about his long career at the Justice Department and his reputation, which he did not want Trump to tarnish, the people said.
“I can go. I’m ready to go. I can resign. But I don’t want to go out with a tweet,” the deputy attorney general said, according to one person’s account. Trump routinely makes significant personnel announcements via Twitter.
The person said Rosenstein left for another, regularly scheduled White House meeting but soon had a call with Trump. Even in the days that followed, his departure seemed so certain that the Justice Department lined up a succession plan. But Rosenstein ultimately met with Trump aboard Air Force One a few weeks later and remained at the Justice Department. He might do so almost up to the point his successor is confirmed.
Trump has nominated Deputy Transportation Secretary Jeffrey Rosen to replace Rosenstein. Rosen must still be confirmed by the Senate — which could happen next month.
Rosenstein’s defenders say he is a prosecutor at heart, guided by doing what he thinks is right rather than which side of the political aisle will support him. They note that he has faced criticism from politicians of both parties, and the same people who now worry about him praised him for appointing Mueller.
“You had people drawing a red line around him to protect him in the beginning. Now those same people are going to say, ‘Oh, he’s a conservative hack,’ ” said James M. Trusty, a partner at Ifrah Law and a friend of Rosenstein’s. “In the future, as people look back, there’s lots of room for criticism on lots of things at the FBI and DOJ, but I think he’ll be acquitted nicely.”
The firing of Comey
Rosenstein was installed as the deputy attorney general in April 2017, and only a few weeks into his tenure, he confronted the crisis that would come to define it. Trump, upset over the Russia investigation, wanted to fire Comey, who would not say publicly that Trump was not a target of the Russia probe. After having advisers draft a letter firing Comey, the president was persuaded to talk to Rosenstein and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according Mueller’s report.
In a May 8 meeting with White House lawyers, Rosenstein and Sessions “criticized Comey and did not raise concerns about replacing him,” according to Mueller’s report. Later that day, in front of the president, Rosenstein described his concerns with Comey’s handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was in government, according to the report.
Notes from one participant in the meeting say that Trump told Rosenstein to draft a recommendation about the firing and to include in it that Comey had refused to say Trump was not personally targeted by the Russia investigation, according to Mueller’s report. Rosenstein, according to the notes, said that was not the basis for his recommendation, so he did not think Russia should be mentioned.
According to Mueller’s report, Rosenstein left the meeting and told others his reasons for replacing Comey were not the same as Trump’s. The next day, he turned in a memorandum saying the FBI was “unlikely to regain public and congressional trust” with an unrepentant Comey at the helm. Though the memo did not mention Russia, it offered Trump some political cover. The president fired Comey, and White House aides berated reporters who suggested the move was based on anything other than Rosenstein’s recommendation. The White House released Rosenstein’s memo to support Trump’s action.
Comey’s termination sparked a crisis at the FBI and Justice Department. The deputy attorney general believed the White House was misstating his role in the decision. FBI leaders — acting director McCabe in particular — grew distrustful of Rosenstein.
At a meeting that month, according to McCabe’s recollection captured in contemporaneous memos, Rosenstein suggested he could wear a wire to surreptitiously record the president and talked in passing of using the 25th Amendment to oust Trump from office. Rosenstein has generally disputed that account. But on May 17, he took the dramatic step of appointing Mueller as special counsel — giving the Russia investigation some measure of independence.
McCabe remained worried. At a meeting shortly after Mueller’s appointment, he and Rosenstein each suggested the other should recuse himself from the case, though neither did, people familiar with the matter have said.
Mueller’s report says the special counsel’s team interviewed Rosenstein on May 23 — making it one of the earliest conversations the team had with a witness. Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said career ethics officials at the department determined he did not need to recuse.
Trump was already incensed at Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia case, and he would soon turn his ire on the deputy attorney general — deriding him as a “Democrat from Baltimore.” Rosenstein had been the U.S. attorney in Maryland during the Obama administration, but he is a Republican and lives in Bethesda, Md., a suburb of Washington.
Conservative allies of the president, led by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), pushed Rosenstein to turn over information on the Russia investigation and last April
drafted articles of impeachment against him. Meadows and others also privately complained to Trump about his deputy attorney general.
For his part, Rosenstein publicly fought back, declaring at
an event last May that the Justice Department was “not going to be extorted.”
But while he was sparring with Trump’s allies, the deputy attorney general was also maintaining the kind of workplace diplomacy that wins bosses’ favor. He frequently called and wrote letters to White House aides when they were in the news, or when they celebrated their birthday, people familiar with the matter said. He was recently spotted hugging the president’s personal assistant and other aides at the annual Gridiron Club dinner, and on Monday he was
photographed at the White House Easter Egg Roll, waiting in line to greet one of the president’s closest advisers, Kellyanne Conway.
Philip Bump in New York contributed to this report.
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