Rod Jay Rosenstein IS RESIGNING.
Rosenstein may be gone by the end of next month or as soon as Attorney General designate Barr is confirmed.
He is resigning and has not been forced out or so the official story goes.
Rosenstein is the Deputy Attorney General of the United States Department of Justice.
He is its Number Two, literally not figuratively.
Of course the Mueller probe reported through him until it was taken away just weeks ago.
As a relatively unknown figure until recently, he is not unimportant.
Rather timid and mild mannered, Rosenstein does not look authoritative in either appearance or tone.
A long time DOJ employee, Rosenstein was previously US Attorney for the District of Maryland—where he in fact served in the position longer than any of his predecessors.
President Trump appointed him as Deputy to Attorney General Sessions and the US Senate confirmed him only in April of 2017.
Rosenstein rose to awareness fast since Sessions recused himself on all Russia matters. Rosenstein forced him to do so.
Rosenstein authored the Memo, which Trump used to dismiss then FBI Director, James Comey.
In his Memo, Rosenstein asserted that the FBI must have “a Director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them”.
He ended with an argument against keeping Comey as FBI director, on the grounds that he was given an opportunity to “admit his errors” but that there is no hope that he will “implement the necessary corrective actions.”
He was more critically, the same month, the person who appointed Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate the Trump campaign interaction and possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 election.
A Philadelphian, Rosenstein grew up in a small business, Jewish family and went to the Wharton School at U Penn.
He took a BS in economics and went on to do his JD at Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.
After clerking in the US Court of Appeals, Rosenstein joined the DOJ at the start of his career as a trial lawyer in the criminal division, which interestingly was led by none other than then Attorney General, Mueller.
In the Clinton days, he was counsel to the Deputy Attorney General and saw everything that took place in the Administration.
He was chosen to work with Independent Counsel, Kenneth Starr on the White Water investigation into President Clinton.
From there he went on to be one of the top attorneys in the tax division, where he managed a large team of attorneys.
President George W. Bush nominated Rosenstein to his US Attorney position in 2005.
There he actively prosecuted gangs, racketeering, fraud by county political leaders and corrupt police officers.
Nominated to a seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, his nomination lapsed without support from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Rosenstein is a registered Republican.
He has said he has “no loyalty pledge other than the oath of office.” Rosenstein has come under closer scrutiny and has been in the cross hairs.
Did he cover up malfeasance in the Department?
We know he extend the notorious FISA Court warrants used to perform surveillance on the Trump team?
Whose team is he on — to ask the proverbial question?
Called a prosecutor not a persecutor, by a lawyer friend, Rosenstein is supposedly a “by the book” kind of lawyer.
He did think that Comey “broke the rules.”
Was he used by Trump or was Trump frustrated by him now that the goods are out?
Eleven House GOP members filed articles of impeachment against Rosenstein on July 25, 2018, alleging he stonewalled document requests from Congress and he mishandled the 2016 election investigation.
Did he really offer to wear a wire to get Trump on the record so as to use the 25th Amendment and put his presidency into play?
He denies it, while others insist it to be the case.
Does he protect his pals in the Deep State because he is really one of them?
Should he have gone long ago?
Perhaps the new chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsay Graham, would do us all a service and subpoena him to testify the day after he leaves office—on the record.
There are a lot of questions to answer—better schedule two or three days.
