Bloomberg: "Rod Rosenstein Has Some Serious Explaining to Do"

Why would the deputy attorney general help Trump fire the FBI director, then investigate the president for doing so?



For the last two years, millions of Americans have come to view Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as a kind of national insurance policy. This assessment is now in need of revision.

Rosenstein is the guy who appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate whether Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election a week after President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. As the president rages on Twitter, Rosenstein is seen as the avatar of what one anonymous administration called the “steady state” — the resistance to Trump from within.

For Rosenstein, however, this rationale doesn’t quite work. After all, he abetted Trump’s decision to fire Comey, writing the May 2017 memo recommending that Comey be relieved of his duties for his mishandling of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. He did this at Trump’s request. What’s more, says McCabe, Rosenstein was aware that Trump was motivated to fire Comey because of the Russia probe.

Rosenstein has denied elements of this account before. And the Justice Department, says “60 Minutes,” issued “a carefully worded” denial of McCabe’s account of Rosenstein’s offer to wear a wire. And of course, McCabe himself was fired last year for allegedly lying to federal investigators about a leak to the Wall Street Journal.

No one elected Andrew McCabe, James Comey or anyone else at the FBI to lead the country. They work for the man who was elected in 2016. Even as they investigate the election, they need to remember that.