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Devlin Barrett
Reporter focused on national security and law enforcement
Matt Zapotosky
A national security reporter covering the Department of Justice
President Trump sought on Wednesday to defuse the confusion surrounding the future of his Deputy Attorney General, saying he would prefer to keep Rod J. Rosenstein in the work and could even delay Thursday a scheduled meeting between the two men, some feared expulsion .
Answering questions at a long press conference, Trump said that he loved Rosenstein and hoped he would stay in the position.
"I am talking to him; we had a good conversation, "said the president.
The job security of Rosenstein is the subject of almost constant speculation since it was received in early 2017. But that never seemed more risky than after a New York Times article last week claiming that the No. 2 official of the Justice Ministry had Once, he suggested secretly registering the president and gather support to use the 25th amendment of the constitution to remove him from its functions.
"My preference would be to keep it and let it finish," said Trump. "He said that he never said it. He said that he did not believe it. He said that he had a lot of respect for me.
A departure from Rosenstein could spark new fights in different parts of the government, as he oversees Special Adviser Robert S. Mueller III's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign and whether Trump's associates have conspired with these efforts.
Trump and Rosenstein had planned to meet Thursday afternoon to discuss the issue, but the president suggested Wednesday that the meeting would not take place and he was not particularly concerned about the issue.
"I can call Rod tonight or tomorrow and ask for a little delay at the meeting," Trump said, adding that he wanted to focus tomorrow on the Senate hearing against Brett M. Kavanaugh, a candidate for the Supreme Court.
The last chapter of Rosenstein's current saga could be the most confusing, as a few days ago senior Justice Department officials were convinced he was about to resign or be fired.
Rosenstein has often been the target of attacks from a furious president against the investigation conducted in Russia, but behind the scenes, relations between the two men are often kind, according to people familiar with their interviews and their meetings.
In recent administrations, it was unusual for a president and the justice department official No. 2 to interact a lot. But a series of events that began early in the Trump presidency brought them closer, a strange relationship that has somehow survived the frequent turbulence of the administration.
[White House aides increasingly think Rosenstein will stay past the election]
Traditionally, the work of deputy attorney general is a job that fires an intermittent political shot by congressional leaders or internal critics of the Department of Justice, but rarely reaches the level of national political debate. Rosenstein, however, operated in labor under the stern look of national politics as he tried to navigate the hypercharged policy of Russia's investigation.
Rosenstein was sometimes attacked by the Democrats; More recently, the president's allies have tried to force him to quit his job.
James M. Trusty, a former Attorney General at the Ifrah law firm close to Rosenstein, said the constantly changing position of the Attorney General in the eyes of every political party was probably due to his lack of interest in the policy.
"During Rod's tenure, he has obviously shot both sides of the aisle at different times, and at the heart of the political problem is that he is not a politician," said Trusty. "He is just bowing his head and suing or investigating cases. In the end, in a city like Washington, it scares everyone. "
The frequent interactions between Trump and Rosenstein can be explained in part by the way Rosenstein came to oversee the investigation in Russia. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was one of Trump's early supporters in the GOP primaries, exasperated the president by recusing himself at the beginning of 2017 from the investigation into Russian electoral interference.
The President's advisers stated that he had never forgiven Sessions for this decision, to such an extent that Trump did not like to talk to the Attorney General, or even about him.
This means that the president often interacts with the very person who oversees the investigation of his conduct.
"Based on my observations, Rod enjoys working with and respectful of the President and what he is trying to accomplish," said Ian Prior, former spokesman for the Justice Department. "As a long-time prosecutor, I think Rod really enjoys being at the helm of the Justice Department in an administration with a law enforcement chair." On crime issues, of opioid crisis and illegal immigration, "They are on the same page."
Earlier this week, it appeared that a last break was imminent. Rosenstein publicly disputed the claims about what he had said during those May 2017 talks but privately told the White House officials that he was ready to resign as a result of the revelations, both that the president would pledge not to publicly denounce the work, according to people familiar with the conversations.
These conversations, from Friday to Sunday evening, led officials of the White House and the Justice Department to think that Rosenstein would soon be absent.
They were wrong.
White House officials are now saying that they expect Rosenstein to stay in work after the election, when he will probably be replaced.
When the president appointed Rosenstein for the first time, he was an American lawyer in Baltimore, having held this position in the Republican and Democratic administrations. The choice was considered non-controversial and was greeted with relief by many veterans of the Department of Justice, who felt that Rosenstein would bring some stability and institutional perspective to the table.
Shortly after taking office, Rosenstein made a fateful decision: writing a memo strongly criticizing how FBI director James B. Comey was handling Hillary Clinton's investigation of private email. This memo was used to justify the dismissal of Comey, but a few days later, the president said in a television interview that he was thinking about Russia's case when he decided to send Comey back.
In public, Rosenstein's note makes him a nasty snapshot of the left – someone who seems to have yielded to political pressure to help the president weaken an investigation of his loved ones. Even within the Department of Justice, some officials questioned Rosenstein's decision and feared it had been tampered with. A few days later, Rosenstein appointed Mueller as a special prosecutor, which alleviated much of the criticism he had received from Democrats at the time.
"It's not a normal administration, and it's not a normal official," said Matt Miller, spokesman for the Justice Department during the Obama administration. "I think he was very unstable at the beginning of his tenure and he then stabilized and grew up in the business, and I think last week he tested it again and that 39; he again seemed a little unstable, but I hope that for the stake of the department, he is able to continue in the work ".
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