With his statement last night, Rod Rosenstein joins the ranks of Trump hires who have issued bizarre public pronoucements. Not all of these folks are rational (looking at you, Kellyanne and “Dr.” Gorka), but Rosenstein’s career to date seems to confirm my sense that he’s a serious, rational prosecutor. I will leave to the Beltway Carnacs nearly all explanations for Rosenstein’s descent into madness. Instead, let’s consider the possibility that this statement was produced under some level of duress. What’s next for Mr. Rosenstein?
A decent possibility is that either Jeff Sessions or the Great Orange Flamethrower demands that Rosenstein fires Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The WaPo’s Fred Barbash has published a flowchart that allows us old fogeys to relive the Saturday Night Massacre. This time, the AG is out of the picture, so the part of Elliot Richardson is being played by Rosenstein. Should he decline a direct order to fire Mueller and resign or be fired, the William Ruckelshaus role is set to be played by Rachel Brand.
Per Wikipedia:
Rachel Lee Brand (born May 1, 1973) is an American lawyer, academic, and government official. She was sworn in as the United States Associate Attorney General on May 22, 2017, after being nominated to the position by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the United States Senate. Brand is the first woman to serve as Associate Attorney General.[1] She served as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy in the George W. Bush administration and was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Prior to becoming Associate Attorney General, Brand was an associate professor at Antonin Scalia Law School.
More on her background:
Her prior government experience includes serving as the Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice after being confirmed by the Senate and appointed by President George W. Bush. In that capacity, Ms. Brand served as chief policy adviser to the Attorney General, handling a broad range of national security, law enforcement, and civil justice issues. She also oversaw the development of all regulations promulgated by the Department of Justice and managed the Department's role in selecting federal judges, including running the confirmation hearing preparation for Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Earlier, Ms. Brand served as Associate Counsel to President George W. Bush at the White House.
Here’s a piece from the Times back in 2007, when she ran murder boards for Justices Alito and Roberts and, briefly, for Harriet Miers:
Rachel L. Brand, by her own admission, has never prosecuted so much as a traffic case. But in January 2006, when Justice Department officials began to discuss removing some United States attorneys, Ms. Brand was proposed as the top federal prosecutor in the Western District of Michigan, an e-mail message released on Friday shows.
In the end, Ms. Brand, who heads the Office of Legal Policy in the department, decided that she did not want the position and was not nominated to succeed Margaret M. Chiara, then the top prosecutor for the district. Ms. Chiara was later ousted.
The four other people proposed in the message as successors to other United States attorneys had greater experience. But it was notable that Ms. Brand, a 33-year-old cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School, was recommended by D. Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.
And from the Post shortly after she was confirmed:
“She’s a top-notch analytic lawyer and really good at figuring out what is the art of the possible,” said Neal Katyal, former acting solicitor general in the Obama administration who worked with Brand when she was at the Chamber [of Commerce]. “But the big issue for everyone at the Justice Department right now is how rigorously they’re going to police the rule of law.”
What Mr. Katyal said. Age 44, one month into the job of a lifetime, pretty solid conservative credentials, but apparently well-regarded by Obama’s Administration. Your guess as to what she’d do if faced with a decision regarding Robert Mueller is as good as mine. BTW, the person who holds the Robert Bork position is none other than Dana Boente. Good times.