President Trump should leave Rod Rosenstein alone
September 25, 2018 12:45 AM
For a nerve-wracking hour or so Monday morning, reports circulated that Deputy Attorney General Rod J.
Rosenstein had resigned in anticipation that President Trump would fire him. It turned out that Rosenstein had neither resigned nor been fired, though he has a meeting scheduled for Thursday with the president. Rosenstein, a rare voice of reason within this administration, might still be facing termination.
Such a move would pose a potential threat to the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, to the independence of the Justice Department and, more broadly, to the rule of law.
Speculation about Rosenstein’s future was stoked by a New York Times report citing sources who said the deputy attorney general last year discussed secretly taping the president and the possibility of the 25th Amendment being invoked. That amendment envisions the Cabinet removing from office a president who is incapacitated. Rosenstein reportedly did this shortly after he took his place in the Justice Department and just after Trump fired then-FBI Director James B. Comey, launching the administration into a self-provoked tailspin.
Rosenstein responded that he sees no reason for removing Trump. The Justice Department said his talk of recording the president was sarcastic. More to the point, there is no evidence Rosenstein in the intervening year tried to record the president or remove him from office.
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article218977345.html#storylink=cpy