Rosenstein expected to step down

Rosenstein expected to step down after new attorney general's confirmation

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN and CAITLIN OPRYSKO

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the Justice Department official who has played a key role in overseeing the Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, is planning to step down once President Donald Trump’s new nominee for attorney general has been confirmed by the Senate.

Rosenstein’s impending departure raises significant questions about the future of Mueller’s probe into Russian election meddling and allegations of collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Kremlin. Rosenstein took on oversight the Mueller probe in its infancy after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself in over concerns that he had misled Congress during his confirmation hearings about his contacts with Russian officials during the campaign.

Two sources familiar with Rosenstein’s plans indicated Wednesday that his upcoming departure was not spurred by any singular event.

“The history of DAG appointments is very clear: almost nobody stays more than two years and nobody stays on for a new AG, other than a brief transition," said James Trusty, a former colleague of Rosenstein's at the Justice Department who is now a partner at Ifrah Law. "While Rod has had tremendous longevity in law enforcement, I don’t think he ever expected more than about two years from this position. I think it is fairly clear this is not a 'force out' and that he will be well received in the private sector when he decided to make that jump.”

Since assuming control of the Russia investigation, Rosenstein has been the subject of much criticism from the president on Twitter, where Trump has regularly blasted the “Fake & Corrupt Russia Investigation.” The president regularly refers to Mueller's probe as a "witch hunt" and insists that there was no collusion between his campaign and Moscow.

In lashing out directly at the deputy attorney general, who was nominated by Trump himself and confirmed by the Senate overwhelmingly, the president has accused Rosenstein of having a conflict of interest because he was the official who signed off on an application to surveil former Trump campaign official Carter Page.

Trump has also harped on Rosenstein’s authorship of a memo justifying the firing of former FBI director James Comey in 2017, an action that Mueller is now investigating a potential attempt by the president to obstruct the investigation into his campaign. The White House initially said Trump had fired Comey at Rosenstein's recommendation, an explanation later undone by the president himself, who said he had planned to fire Comey regardless of what Rosenstein said and that he did so with the Russia investigation, then overseen by Comey, on his mind.

The deputy attorney general’s status in the Trump administration had been in limbo for months, though the most recent scramble came last September after a New York Times story describing Rosenstein’s proposal to wear a wire to record the president. The deputy attorney general went to the White House days after that article's publication, weighing his resignation and also expecting to be fired.

But pressure on Rosenstein abated as November’s midterm elections grew closer, even as his direct superior was eventually removed from his post.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that she was personally unaware of any plans for Rosenstein to step down and insisted that Rosenstein's planned departure was not due to pressure from the White House.

“I know the deputy attorney general has always planned to roughly stay around two years,” she said in an interview on Fox News.

“I haven't spoken to the deputy attorney general myself, so I'll leave any announcements for him or the president to make when they want to do that, but certainly I don't think there's any willingness by the president or the White House to push him out. My guess is that he is making room for the new attorney general to build a team that he wants around him.”

Trump in December nominated William Barr, who previously served as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, to return to the Justice Department's top spot. The department has been led since early November by Matt Whitaker, the acting attorney general who replaced Sessions, whom Trump fired one day after the midterm elections.

Whitaker technically assumed direct oversight of Mueller when he became acting attorney general after Sessions' ouster, but sources familiar with the matter have said Rosenstein and his team, led by principal associate deputy Edward O'Callaghan, continued playing a role supervising the special counsel.

House Democrats have been pushing to learn more about who at DOJ has oversight over Mueller and had even secured a commitment from Whitaker to testify before the Judiciary Committee this month. But Justice officials last week asked Democrats to delay the hearing until mid- or late-February, saying they were short-staffed because of the government shutdown and Whitaker's travel out of Washington.

Barr, meantime, can expect questions on who is handling the Mueller probe during his confirmation hearings that are scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Congressional Democrats on Wednesday have already vowed to grill him on how he would handle oversight of the Mueller investigation in light of rumblings of Rosenstein’s impending resignation.

“The stakes of the Judiciary Committee hearing and in particular the inquiries to the nominee about what he will do with this investigation,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Wednesday on CNN’s “New Day.”

“Will [Barr] allow it to complete, will he enable it to have the resources it needs, and he will make sure that the results are available to congress and the American public, those questions assume greater importance” in the event that Rosenstein steps down, he continued.

The Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment.