Image 01 Image 03

Rod Rosenstein Tag

Former Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein and former FBI Director James Comey have ventured into a public spat over President Donald Trump and Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian collusion. Comey wrote earlier this month that Rosenstein did not have the strength to "resist the compromises necessary to survive Mr. Trump." Rosenstein lashed out at Comey for becoming a "partisan pundit" and showed disgust that the former director would speculate "about the strength of my character and the fate of my immortal soul."

Monday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein submitted his two-week notice. His last day will be May 11.

Outgoing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is no friend to President Donald Trump, criticized President Barack Obama's administration over its handling of Russia hacking in 2016 and called out former FBI Director James Comey at the Public Servants Dinner of the Armenian Bar Association. From Fox News:
“The FBI disclosed classified evidence about the investigation to ranking legislators and their staffers,” he said. “Someone selectively leaked details to the news media. The FBI director [Comey] announced at a congressional hearing that there was a counterintelligence investigation that might result in criminal charges. Then the former FBI director alleged that the president pressured him to close the investigation, and the president denied that the conversation occurred.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has come out to bat for his boss Attorney General William Barr, who has faced criticism from people that he's trying to mislead people on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report. One thing that has annoyed me for awhile is the fact that people have called the four page summary "Barr's summary" when Rosenstein helped draft it.

Reports have come out today that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein plans to leave the Department of Justice (DOJ) after confirmation of the new attorney general. From ABC News:
Rosenstein has communicated to President Donald Trump and White House officials his plan to depart the administration around the time William Barr, Trump's nominee for attorney general, would take office following a Senate confirmation.

Just before President Donald Trump boarded Air Force One, he told the press he has no plans to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein is traveling with Trump to Orlando, FL. Speculation has grown around a possible firing of Rosenstein after The New York Times reported last month that he offered to tape Trump and discuss invoking the 25th amendment with Cabinet Members.

Earlier this morning, Axios has reported that "Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has verbally resigned to Chief of Staff John Kelly in anticipation of being fired by President Trump, according to a source with direct knowledge." Other reports indicate that Rosenstein is headed to the White House and "expecting to be fired" and he will not resign. Now it has emerged that Rosenstein will meet with President Donald Trump on Thursday.

President Donald Trump will go on a Twitter tirade in 3...2...1... The New York Times reported that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosensetin, the man who hired Special Counsel Robert Mueller, offered to wear a wire to tape Trump and rally "cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office for being unfit." He suggested that he could bring Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then-DHS Secretary John Kelly to his side. Kelly now serves as Trump's chief of staff.

Buried amid all the anti-Trump "Russia, Russia, Russia" derangement are a couple of potentially explosive revelations. Lisa Page, former FBI lawyer and mistress of former FBI agent Peter Strzok, admitted that the FBI couldn't prove collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia at the time Robert Mueller took over the investigation, and Bob Woodward admits that after searching "hard" for two years, he found no evidence of collusion, either.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced today that a federal grand jury indicted 12 Russians, all officers with Russia's intelligence agency GRU, for allegedly hacking into the DNC and Hillary's campaign. The most important part of Rosenstein's speech: "There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result."

We reported on Friday about the hearing in federal court in Virginia regarding Paul Manafort's request to have his criminal indictment and case dismissed because it was beyond the jurisdiction of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to prosecute. Statements made by the judge during the hearing generated a lot of news, Manafort Judge: Mueller only really cares about the “prosecution or impeachment” of Trump. See that post for the details on the news reports of the hearing, plus my explanation of why Mueller is exceeding his authority.

There was an interesting filing recently by Paul Manafort in the prosecution by Robert Mueller's team against him in the Eastern District of Virginia. The filing concerned leaks reported in the media that were attributed by the media to government sources. Some of those media reports alleged Manafort contact with Russians. Manafort file a Motion (pdf.)(full embed at bottom) seeking a court hearing to get to the bottom of the leaks.

There isn't much of a pretense anymore that the Mueller investigation is about alleged Russian campaign collusion. Maybe it started out about collusion, but it veered off course within a couple of months, when Mueller decided that Paul Manafort needed to be investigated for conduct many years ago having nothing to do with the campaign, or even Russia. Rod Rosenstein created the paperwork in early August 2017 to retroactively expand Mueller's investigation and justify Mueller conduct that already had taken place.

I was a guest on the Mark Levin Show on Wednesday evening, April 4, 2018. The topic was my post, Rosenstein Memo confirming Mueller could investigate Manafort came a week after raid on Manafort’s home. We also covered related topics such as Manafort's attempt to get the case against him thrown out, and whether Donald Trump should agree to an in-person interview with Mueller.

Paul Manafort has moved to have the October 27, 2017 Indictment, and subsequent Superseding Indictment, dismissed on the ground, among others, that Robert Mueller has exceeded the authority granted him on May 17, 2017, when he was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The argument is that the indictment of Manafort for business dealings is unrelated to and took place years before 2016 Russian election interference and alleged collusion.