Report: DOJ Official Left Out Of Concern She’d Have To Oversee Russia Probe

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 02: Deputy U.S. Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein,(L), and Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand, participate in a summit to discuss efforts to combat human trafficking, at the Justice Department, on February 2, 2018 in Washington, DC.  (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 02: Deputy U.S. Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein,(L), and Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand, participate in a summit to discuss efforts to combat human trafficking, at the Justice Depa... WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 02: Deputy U.S. Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein,(L), and Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand, participate in a summit to discuss efforts to combat human trafficking, at the Justice Department, on February 2, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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Rachel Brand, the third-ranking official at the Justice Department, decided to leave her post in part because she wanted to avoid any possibility that she would have to oversee the federal Russia investigation, NBC News reported on Monday.

NBC News reported, citing unnamed sources close to Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand, that Brand was also frustrated by continuing vacancies at the Justice Department.

President Donald Trump has reportedly grown increasingly frustrated with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the Justice Department official who oversees special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, and has privately contemplated terminating Rosenstein.

According to NBC News, Brand was concerned that Trump would fire Rosenstein and leave her in charge of overseeing Mueller’s probe, a highly visible position that Brand did not want.

The Justice Department on Friday announced that Brand will leave the Justice Department in the next few weeks, and Walmart announced that she will take an executive job at the corporation. According to NBC News, her move to the private sector has been in the works for “some time.”

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  1. Well, that’s a profile in courage. Who wouldn’t prefer a job making huge bank defending Sam Walton and his heirs instead of defending the Constitution?

    So her husband clerked on the SC for Clarence Thomas and works for a firm that has Rick Gates as one of its major clients, and she actively declined to continue in a role that could involve protecting the Mueller investigation.

    A cynic might put those two things together and conclude that neither she or her husband want any harm to come to TrumpCo.

  2. She daydreams about being elevated to the US Supreme Court. She didn’t want to be the next Robert Bork. Personally, I don’t think we need a career coward on the Court.

  3. Yes, bluestatedon, all profile and no courage with Ms. Brand.

  4. Seeing to completion an investigation of alleged election tampering by Russia and possible involvement in that scheme by the current sitting President. Yeah, sounds like trivial nonsense a good lawyer and prosecutor would consider beneath their station.

  5. She looks formidable. As PGW said of Spode: “An eye that could open an oyster at sixty paces.”

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