Deputy AG may get ax from peeved Prez
Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who allegedly suggested secretly recording President Trump and hinted at using the 25th Amendment to remove him from office, could be fired Thursday, setting off a chain reaction that may have dire consequences for the Russian hacking investigation.
The White House put the embattled bureaucrat's fate on ice Monday after rumors swirled Rosenstein (photo) was expecting to be fired or resign in light of the wiretapping reports.
“At the request of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein, he and President Trump had an extended conversation to discuss the recent news stories,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. “Because the President is at the United Nations General Assembly and has a full schedule with leaders from around the world, they will meet on Thursday when the President returns to Washington, D.C.”
Rosenstein oversees special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russian government.
It's unclear if Trump will fire Rosenstein on Thursday, but the President made an ominous reference to him at a rally in Missouri last week. “Just look at what is now being exposed in the Department of Justice and the FBI. You see what happened at the FBI, they're all gone,” Trump said. “But there's a lingering stench, and we're going to get rid of that, too.”
Trump's comments came in response to reports Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire to record him in the wake of FBI Director James Comey's firing in May 2017. Rosenstein floated the idea in private meetings with senior Justice Department officials, during which he also raised the possibility of approaching cabinet members about invoking the 25th Amendment to unseat Trump on the ground that he's mentally unfit to serve, as first reported by The New York Times.
Rosenstein has vehemently denied those claims.
A former Justice Department official who worked closely with Rosenstein disputed the 25th Amendment detail, but said the deputy attorney general once proposed wearing a wire. However, the ex-official said Rosenstein made the wire comment sarcastically. “He has the ability and often takes the temperature down in the room by making a calm joke in an otherwise tense setting,” the former official told the Daily News.
Trump has long resented Rosenstein, who assumed oversight of the Russia probe following the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The longtime public servant appointed Mueller to lead the investigation after Trump fired