WaPo: Deputy AG Threatened To Quit When WH Pinned Comey Firing On Him

United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein gives testimony before the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary on his nomination to be Deputy Attorney General on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC ... United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein gives testimony before the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary on his nomination to be Deputy Attorney General on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on Tuesday, March 7, 2017. Credit: Ron Sachs / CNP - NO'WIRE'SERVICE'- Photo by: Ron Sachs/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

In the immediate aftermath of President Donald Trump’s decision to fire James Comey as the director of the FBI, the White House signaled that a review of Comey started with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, which reportedly frustrated Rosenstein.

When he realized that the White House was trying to pin Comey’s departure on him, Rosenstein threatened to quit, the Washington Post reported Wednesday night, citing an unnamed “person close to the White House.”

On Thursday morning ABC News’ Jonathan Karl also reported that Rosenstein considered quitting over the White House’s initial narrative surrounding Comey’s firing.

Reports suggest that Trump had been considering firing Comey for at least a week and that the President had been growing increasingly angry over Comey’s actions. Per the Washington Post:

Trump was angry that Comey would not support his baseless claim that President Barack Obama had his campaign offices wiretapped. Trump was frustrated when Comey revealed in Senate testimony the breadth of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s effort to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And he fumed that Comey was giving too much attention to the Russia probe and not enough to investigating leaks to journalists.

Trump was also unhappy with the attention Comey received in the media, according to the Wall Street Journal. Trump “viewed Mr. Comey as eager to step in front of TV cameras and questioned whether his expanding media profile was warping his view of the Russia investigation,” the Journal reported.

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. Nice career, It’d be a shame if anything happened to it.

    Too bad , by association with and being a part of this lie factory , your career is esentially over
    The Trump Stink will never wash off.
    If you had done what you should have like Archibald Cox , you might have saved yourself .

    Off topic but related. Came across this while perusing this morning
    Is it any wonder half the country is ill informed and crazy?

    https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/05/10/fox-friends-propagandistic-coverage-trump-firing-fbi-director-17-captions/216381

  2. But you didn’t actually quit did you? Mighty big of you, asshole.

  3. Nazi’s scapegoated this guy? No way.

  4. But…he didn’t.

  5. For all we know, Sessions and Trump lied to Rosenstein about the purpose of the memo.
    I’m not ready to judge Rosenstein yet. I don’t believe someone with such a record of public service is corrupt—and even if he is corrupt, to some degree, not enough for Trump.
    This guy is no Giuliani, no Christie, no McGahn.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

231 more replies

Participants

Avatar for valgalky23 Avatar for lestatdelc Avatar for alliebean Avatar for ajm Avatar for austin_dave Avatar for drbb Avatar for overreach_this Avatar for srfromgr Avatar for feathered_head Avatar for matthew1961 Avatar for bluestatedon Avatar for krusher Avatar for rollinnolan Avatar for sniffit Avatar for buckyor Avatar for geofu54 Avatar for serendipitoussomnambulist Avatar for darrtown Avatar for centralasiaexpat Avatar for cub_calloway Avatar for socalista Avatar for philip_marlowe Avatar for jakebarnes Avatar for spacesaver

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: