IF HE GOES, I GO, TOO
Attorney General Jeff Sessions may have saved his top deputy’s job by threatening to quit himself.
President Trump had Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein in his crosshairs last week after the FBI raided the office, home and hotel room of Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen.
The president reportedly blamed Rosenstein, who oversees the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and named former FBI Director Robert Mueller the probe’s special counsel, for OK’ing the Cohen raid.
Sessions, during a call to the White House last weekend, told White House counsel Donald McGahn that Rosenstein’s firing could trigger his own exit, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
The resignation of the attorney general could create a significant political crisis for the president.
Sessions asked McGahn for details of an April 12 meeting between Trump and Rosenstein, The Washington Post reported, citing “a person with knowledge of the call.” Sessions was reportedly re- lieved to learn the meeting was “largely cordial,” and said he would have had to consider resigning if the Justice Department’s No. 2 official was canned.
Another Washington Post source said Sessions did not intend to threaten the White House, but was trying to make it clear that he would be left in an untenable position if Rosenstein was fired.
But Sessions’ own standing with Trump has been on shifting ground, because the president is unhappy the attorney general recused himself from the Russia probe. That put Rosenstein in charge, and he named Mueller to lead the investigation after former FBI Director James Comey was fired.
Late Saturday, Trump refuted a passage of the Washington Post story that claimed he refers to Sessions as “Mr. Magoo” and Rosenstein as “Mr. Peepers,” a character from a 1950s sitcom, according to “people with whom the president has spoken.” The president stated, “There are no such people and don’t know these characters... just more Fake & Disgusting News to create ill will!”