How to Stop Trump’s Slow-Motion ‘Saturday Night Massacre’
If Trump removes Rod Rosenstein, Congress must overcome obstruction and keep the executive in check.
Trump, a president who seems more Nixonian than Nixon himself, may be plotting a plodding—but no less constitutionally corrosive—Saturday Night Massacre. After The New York Times published an explosive report that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had perhaps entertained the idea of organizing an effort to remove the president—utilizing the 25th Amendment to the Constitution—there has been speculation that Trump will remove Rosenstein. That may not happen immediately, as the Deputy Attorney General has denied the report and scrambled to keep his job. But every time Rosenstein heads for the White House, as he will do again Thursday for a meeting with Trump, there is speculation about the possible removal of the man who oversees Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into wrongdoing by the Trump campaign and a variety of related matters.
In a Justice Department where Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from decisions regarding the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, the removal of Rosenstein would almost certainly shift authority over the Mueller probe to an official who could fire the prosecutor and end an inquiry that the president decries as a partisan “witch hunt.” “If [Rosenstein] is fired it could look like it is a part of the obstruction of justice that continues,” explains former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks. “It could look exactly like the ‘Saturday Night Massacre’ taking place over a protracted period of time.”
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