Rod Rostenstein threatened to resign on Tuesday night after realizing the White House was putting former FBI Director James Comey’s dismissal on him, according to the Washington Post.
Having read Rosenstein’s full memo, I noticed that he never directly called for Comey to be fired. I thought it was closer to a “Comey needs to admit he made mistakes in the Clinton investigation” and maybe he should be dismissed if he refuses. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Rosenstein thought he was writing an internal memo to encourage Comey to admit his mistakes and didn’t know Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions planned to use it as a pretense for firing Comey.
Anyway, if Rosenstein is angry about his reputation being used as cover and in response turning on the administration, that bodes well for an independent prosecutor taking over the DOJ investigation. I wouldn’t put anything past Trump but it would be beyond stunning for him to fire Rosenstein after the White House spent all day lauding Rosenstein’s qualifications, reputation, and bipartisan support in his confirmation vote? If he tried that, surely there would be enough Republican defectors to actually do something to stop this monster.