President complains of ‘lingering stench’ in Justice
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — President Donald Trump has issued an ominous warning about the Justice Department and the FBI, promising further firings to get rid of a “lingering stench” following reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussed secretly recording the president.
Trump, speaking at a rally in Missouri Friday, did not explicitly mention the Rosenstein furor, which was first reported by The New York Times and confirmed by The Associated Press.
But Trump lashed out against what he sees as anti-Trump bias in the Justice Department, touting the firings he has orchestrated, unnerving many in federal law enforcement and sparking fears about the future of the special counsel’s Russia probe, which Rosenstein oversees.
“You’ve seen what happened in the FBI and the Department of Justice. The bad ones, they’re all gone. They’re all gone,” Trump said. “But there is a lingering stench and we’re going to get rid of that, too.”
One person present during Rosenstein’s remarks said he was being sarcastic. The Times also said he raised the idea of using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump as unfit for office. Rosenstein said the story is “inaccurate and factually incorrect.”
It was the latest storm to buffet the White House, which this week was battered by a number of potentially damaging stories. Beyond the speculation about Rosenstein, it was revealed that Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The president also backed off his plan to declassify documents related to the ongoing probe, and the fate of his Supreme Court nominee remained uncertain.
Trump made the future of Judge Brett Kavanaugh and the federal judiciary a centerpiece of his rally in Springfield, which was intended to support the state’s Republican Senate candidate, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, in his race against Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill.
“I don’t know who she is with but she is not with the state of Missouri,” Trump said. “( Kavanaugh) is a fantastic man, a fantastic man. She won’t vote for him.”
When Hawley praised Trump’s judicial picks, the crowd began chanting Kavanaugh’s name. And the president, drawing energy from a packed, raucous crowd, dished out plenty of red meat, pledging to build his signature border wall, telegraphing that he is willing to escalate trade conflicts with both China and Western allies and suggesting he was “willing to wait” to make a peace deal with North Korea. He also took a swipe at Sen. John McCain, who died last month, for sinking the GOP health care bill, though he did not mention the late war hero by name.