Trump urged not to fire Rosenstein
Aides say ousting deputy attorney general over taping allegation before midterms could hurt White House
Washington — Advisers to President Donald Trump are counseling him against firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein over memos written by the former acting director of the FBI that say Rosenstein proposed secretly recording the president and pushed for his removal from office.
The details of the memos written by former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe when he was acting director were revealed Friday, prompting immediate speculation that the information would give Trump the justification to do what he has long desired: dismiss Rosenstein, the Justice Department official overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
But those close to Trump and some of his allies on Capitol Hill believe that a politically charged firing in advance of the midterm elections will feed a Democratic narrative of chaos in the administration, and that the president should wait until November to make any changes at the Justice Department.
Rosenstein issued a public statement disputing the accuracy of the New York Times story that described the memos written by McCabe and his then-inhouse counsel, FBI lawyer Lisa Page.
On Friday evening, Rosenstein was summoned to the White House, where Chief of Staff John Kelly demanded to know whether the accounts were accurate and, if not, urged Rosenstein to issue a more forceful denial.
After the Kelly meeting, Rosenstein issued a second statement, saying he had never sought to secretly record Trump and never advocated removal of the president. Mention of the constitutional option to remove the president also echoed a recent op-ed in the New York Times by an anonymous senior official in the administration who wrote that “there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment.”
Trump spent much of Friday evening on Air Force One, where he polled advisers about whether he should fire Rosenstein, according to a White House official. In those discussions, the president said the story confirmed what he knew all along — that Justice Department officials were out to get him, according to the adviser.
The president continued to discuss the issue with aides and associates on Saturday, and said he was more suspicious than furious about the reports, peppering his inner circle with a round of questions about whether he was being “baited” into taking action that could imperil his presidency because McCabe — a person he detests — took some notes about private conversations, as one ally close to him put it.
“McCabe complicates it,” the ally said. “He doesn’t trust McCabe and thinks McCabe is maybe playing a game with memos — maybe because of his book deal, maybe trying to take down [Trump]. So, he’s staying cool, for now.”
St. Martin’s Press announced Tuesday that it will publish a book by McCabe, “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump,” in December.
Inside the top ranks of the Republican Party, there are also discussions about what a Rosenstein firing could mean for this year’s midterm elections, which are just weeks away.
Several veteran Republicans communicated to friends at the White House on Saturday that any major upheaval at the Justice Department could trigger a political hurricane for the GOP to weather in an already difficult year. The White House, through various back channels, made clear that no such shake-up was coming, according to two Republicans in touch with Trump administration officials.