Kavanaugh now, Rosenstein later
A meeting between President Trump and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein was postponed to avoid conflicting with the Kavanaugh Senate hearing.
WASHINGTON — A highly anticipated meeting between President Donald Trump and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was postponed until next week to avoid conflicting with the Senate hearing involving Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the White House said Thursday.
The two were set to meet Thursday following reports that Rosenstein last year discussed possibly secretly recording the president and using the Constitution’s 25th Amendment to remove him from office.
But White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the men agreed to reschedule their meeting because “they do not want to do anything to interfere with the hearing.”
Amid speculation that the meeting could result in Rosenstein’s dismissal or resignation, Trump said Wednesday that he would “certainly prefer not” to fire Rosenstein and that the Justice Department’s No. 2 official had denied making the remarks first attributed to him in a New York Times report.
“I would much prefer keeping Rod Rosenstein,” Trump said at a news conference in New York. “He said he did not say it. He said he does not believe that. He said he has a lot of respect for me, and he was very nice and we’ll see.”
Trump added, “My preference would be to keep him and to let him finish up.”
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway would not say Thursday when the meeting would take place, but stressed that the two will talk and Trump has made clear “he would prefer that the deputy attorney general stay on the job and complete the job.”
Rosenstein is overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and his dismissal would put that probe in jeopardy and create a political storm.
Friends and former colleagues of Rosenstein say they don’t expect him to step aside and give up oversight of the Russia investigation and the enormous swath of Justice Department operations for which he is responsible.
Rosenstein “has tremendous loyalty to the department,” said former Justice Department lawyer and longtime friend James Trusty. “He’s a very long-run, historical-minded guy in a lot of ways. I think he may have some confidence that history will be kinder to him than politicians are.”
Though Rosenstein appears poised to survive the week, it’s not clear how much longer he’ll be around. Trump has signaled that he may fire Sessions after the November midterms, and Rosenstein could go with him.
Some officials believe Rosenstein’s reported musings about invoking the 25th Amendment could make it defensible for Trump to part with him.