by WorldTribune Staff, September 24, 2018
President Donald Trump will meet with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Sept. 27 amid reports that Rosenstein has resigned, or plans on resigning, from his post as the Department of Justice’s No. 2 official.
Reuters reported on Sept. 24 that Rosenstein was present at a “substantive meeting” at the White House, conflicting with earlier reports that he had indeed resigned.
According to Axios, Rosenstein had offered his verbal resignation to Kelly following a New York Times report that Rosenstein had plotted to remove Trump from office either by wearing a wire or invoking the 25th Amendment.
Axios quoted sources as saying Rosenstein decided to resign in advance because he was “expecting to be fired.”
Related: Trey Gowdy to Rosenstein on Russia prove: ‘Finish it the hell up!’ June 29, 2018
Citing a source familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that Rosenstein’s resigning did come up in discussions with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly over the weekend, but said the Axios report that Rosenstein had officially resigned was incorrect.
Trump will meet with Rosenstein on Sept. 27, according to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
“At the request of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he and President Trump had an extended conversation to discuss the recent news stories,” Sanders said in a statement. “Because the President is at the United Nations General Assembly and has a full schedule with leaders from around the world, they will meet on Thursday when the President returns to Washington, D.C.”
Pete Williams of NBC News reported that Rosenstein would not resign of his own accord after his comments in the New York Times about possibly recording and removing Trump were revealed last week.
Rosenstein called the New York Times report “inaccurate” but denied specific allegations. Later, the DOJ conceded Rosenstein made the comments, but insisted he was joking.
Mark Penn, former adviser to President Bill Clinton, wrote for The Hill that “Rosenstein’s statement in response to the news accounts carefully avoids denying having discussed wiring himself or others in some effort to entrap Trump. This cabal is meeting and planning, post-Comey’s firing, despite the fact that Rosenstein himself in his memo to President Trump said Comey was ‘wrong’ and the FBI could not regain lost public trust without a new director who understood his errors.”
Penn added: “It seems Rosenstein also may have believed we needed a new president. Just days into his expanded role and after these conversations, he appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel with a still-secret charter to investigate the Trump campaign and administration; the precipitating act was the very firing he recommended.”
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Dead man walking? Rosenstein ‘resigns’ but shows up at White House meeting added by World Tribune on
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