Rod Rosenstein submits resignation
Deputy attorney general appointed special counsel Robert Mueller
WASHINGTON – Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced his departure Monday after two years in which he was often the target of President Donald Trump’s scorn.
Rosenstein sent a resignation letter to the president in which he offered gratitude to Trump while indirectly referring to the extraordinary challenges posed by the sprawling investigation into Russian election interference that he helped bring to a conclusion.
“I am grateful to you for the opportunity to serve; for the courtesy and humor you often display in our personal conversations; and for the goals you set in your inaugural address: patriotism, unity, safety, education and prosperity,” Rosenstein wrote Monday. His resignation is set to take effect May 11.
Less than two weeks ago, Russia special counsel Robert Mueller delivered a scathing account of Trump repeatedly seeking to limit or derail the investigation. Though Mueller did not resolve whether Trump’s actions were criminal, Rosenstein and Attorney General William Barr determined that there was insufficient evidence to charge the president with obstruction of justice. On the question of whether Trump conspired with the Russian government to tilt the 2016 election in his favor, Mueller concluded that the evidence did not support such a finding. Democrats accused the two Justice officials of trying to cover for the president.
“We enforce the law without fear or favor because credible evidence is not partisan and truth is not determined by opinion polls,” Rosenstein said in his letter. “We ignore fleeting distractions and focus our attention on the things that matter, because a republic that endures is not governed by the news cycle.”
A career federal prosecutor, Rosenstein was thrust into an unusually public role for the agency’s second-in-command almost immediately after taking office when then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself in the midst of the Russia inquiry. Sessions ceded authority to his 54-year-old deputy.
Among his first actions as deputy attorney general, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum Trump used as the basis for firing FBI Director James Comey. Trump’s action became part of Mueller’s examination of whether the president sought to obstruct the inquiry.