Rosenstein appears to be on his way out - Resigning before he's fired?

I'm seeing conflicting reports on the resignation aspect. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

I think I've said quite a bit that I doubted this day was coming. And here is it. Upside? Trump will continue to be invincible with a smaller and smaller pool of unshakable fans, and, like with firing Comey, it will end up being a self-inflicted wound more than a heroic triumph over rule of law. But hey, I'm trying to look on the bright side these days.

lizmonster said:

I'm seeing conflicting reports on the resignation aspect. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

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My understanding is he's definitely being fired, gathered from random Twitter scuttlebutt.

It hasn't happened yet, but Jesus, it's 8:50 am and today's been six days long already.

Only my opinion, but I don't think Rosenstein would quit. There is too much at stake here for him to take the easy way out. Make them fire him. Any way you look at it, this is a critical moment, and a Constitutional crisis of epic proportions.

The NYT is going to have some answering to do for setting this in motion on nothing but a whisper from someone who knew someone who was told by someone in the room. They got played and now it's gone DEFCON 2.

Another day. Another clusterfuck. Mere days after Manafort started collaborating with the FBI.

Jeeez, Louise. Mueller must have found something damaging under yet another seemingly innocuous stone.

-cb

ElaineA said:

The NYT is going to have some answering to do for setting this in motion on nothing but a whisper from someone who knew someone who was told by someone in the room. They got played and now it's gone DEFCON 2.

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Speaking of getting played. Trump isn't even AT the White House. He's in NY. What a tactic they've (Trump's Confusion Team) pulled off.

Public radio is saying Trump and Rosen had a phone conversation and Rosenstein is still in.

Looks like a distraction attempt by the Trump office to get the news off of the worsening whirlpool around Kavanaugh.

Some suggested on Twitter that Kelly, or whoever it was who met with Rosenstein, demanded his resignation, and Rosenstein told him to shove it. If that is true, then it should be considered one of the greatest acts of patriotism in our history. Rosenstein, I would like to think, leaned on the Constitution and the rule of law, and refused to back down. (We will probably never know if that's what happened.)

They were "eye to eye, and the other guy [Kelly] blinked." (Points given if you know whose quote that is.)

It never made sense to me for Rosenstein to resign. He would be aiding in the firing of Mueller. The only guy preventing that from happening all these months suddenly deciding to throw in the towel? I like to think he'd look Kelly in the eye and say "do it," (you're right, Larry, we may never know) but whatever is being spun out of the Leak House at this point is 100% unreliable.

We're in "Trump calls Forbes under a fake name" territory now, and the MSM better wise up. Bill Shine is running a master class in Blow Smoke Up Peoples' Asses 550 out of the Comms office. Trust nothing.

From another forum: "This has been a test of the constitutional crisis broadcast system."

ElaineA said:

It never made sense to me for Rosenstein to resign. He would be aiding in the firing of Mueller. The only guy preventing that from happening all these months suddenly deciding to throw in the towel?

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I think this is overstating the influence of Rosenstein, just a bit. I think the major thing preventing the firing of Mueller is fear on the part of President Bone Spurs of what Mueller has in his pocket, and may have set up mechanisms for revealing if his investigation is curtailed. POTUS seems to have been hoping that his bluster and insults and feeble attempts at intimidation would get Mueller to back off. Because that's what 45* has always done, and got away with doing. It seems to baffle him that it doesn't always work that way. Now, just six weeks before a pivotal election, it would amaze me if he fired Mueller. Rosenstein he could get away with firing, but even that will cause a fecal tornado, and the quivering rest of the GOP in power really really really don't want that, not right now.

I don't want Rosenstein to resign, and I'd actually be surprised if he did. He has nothing to gain by doing that, and he is clearly pissed off at POTUS and his surrounding acolytes. If he is fired, they may try to play that as a resignation, but it is unlikely to fly very far that way. And Rosenstein will be freed up to tell anything he damn well pleases, pretty much.

caw

*I cringe at mention of the pathetic man-baby's surname, and try to avoid it.

Trump would also like access to Mueller and I suspect he thinks Sessions and Rosenstein are not team players because they haven't given him access to the investigation. Some of the comments Trump makes, falsely believing he, as POTUS, could order Mueller to declassify the investigation says Trump believes he can look at the material and direct the investigation. Trump is that stupid in his imaginary world.

MaeZe said:

Trump would also like access to Mueller and I suspect he thinks Sessions and Rosenstein are not team players because they haven't given him access to the investigation.

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Define "access".

caw

blacbird said:

Define "access".

caw

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Trump has made comments that he has the authority to declassify anything he wants to.

VOX: [Trump has] ordered the release of many unredacted texts from officials involved in the Russia investigation.

Late Monday afternoon, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders released a banal-sounding statement: that, “for reasons of transparency” and in response to requests from Congress, President Trump has directed the Justice Department to declassify a whole bunch of materials related to the Russia investigation — the ongoing inquiry into his own campaign — immediately.

Those materials include a few specific things Trump wanted declassified: certain sections of the Carter Page FISA application (but, notably, not other sections of it) and FBI interviews related to Page, as well as FBI interviews with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr.

The real bombshell, though, was in the second paragraph of Sanders’s statement: “President Donald J. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr.”

In other words, the president is demanding the release of an enormous amount of internal material, without redaction, about an ongoing investigation into his campaign and his associates.

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Considering Trump believes he has absolute power, he's pushing at the envelope trying to see Mueller's hand.

After I posted I remembered the other thing Trump hints he wants to do, limit Mueller's scope. He's made no secret he think's Rosenstein wrote too broad of a scope for Mueller's investigation. Trump's clearly worried all his money laundering and probable bank fraud will be discovered.

If Trump gains control of the FBI things are very, very bad. This is how authoritarians work--by getting a stranglehold on law enforcement at all levels. We've already seen evidence of police corruption at work in this country and sympathy towards politics that give them more power and carte blanche to do as they wish with no consequences. We cannot count on them to protect our constitutional rights if the administration expands their powers. Look at how the border patrol union is fawning over #45 and using their expanded powers to separate families. If he gets the FBI under his thumb, we're going to see some real ugliness, and he'll be virtually untouchable.