Ok, well in what is either really good news for Donald Trump or else some kind of gambit to preserve the integrity of the special counsel investigation by forestalling any move to fire Mueller, Rod Rosenstein has apparently informed the President that he’s not a target in any part of the probe.
This of course comes amid a flurry of speculation with regard to Trump’s rumored desire to stymie the investigation. To be clear, everyone knows Trump wants to (or at least wanted to) fire Rosenstein and once it was confirmed that the Deputy AG had personally signed off on the FBI raid of Michael Cohen’s offices, home, and hotel room, everyone went ahead and assumed that it was just a matter of time before the President moved against the DoJ.
We wrote about this extensively earlier this month, reminding you that implicated in Devin Nunes’s infamous “memo” were all the people you’d expect to be implicated given what it is Trump’s trying to do. In fact, it almost seems like he could have sent Nunes a list of people who he wanted named because there was Comey, McCabe, Yates, and of course Rosenstein. Only one of those people hasn’t yet been fired or otherwise forced out and that person is Rosenstein who just happens to be overseeing the Mueller probe.
According to sources cited by Bloomberg, Rosenstein brought up the Mueller investigation of his own accord in a conversation with Trump last Friday.
Needless to say, Trump was pleased and maybe doesn’t want to fire ol’ Rod as badly now.
“After the meeting, Trump told several advisers that it’s not the right time to remove either man since he’s not a target of the probe and doesn’t want to take any action that would drag out the investigation,” Bloomberg writes.
On Wednesday, quizzed by reporters about Rosenstein and Mueller, Trump noted the obvious which is that “they’re still here”:
President Trump says Russia investigation "a hoax" during joint press conference with Japanese prime minister. Trump also appears to reference Mueller and Rosenstein, saying "they're still here" pic.twitter.com/lkKUnxNzff
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 18, 2018
Apparently, they’re going to remain “here” at least as long as Trump is assured he isn’t the target of the Mueller probe. According to Bloomberg, the meeting in question was also attended by Don McGahn, FBI general counsel Dana Boente, and John Kelly.
So, as Trump would say, “we’ll see what happens.”
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