INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Who Is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Did President Trump Set Him Up?

By Amy Feinstein
Published on: 17:55 PST, May 11, 2017

Before Tuesday, most Americans would have been hard pressed to name the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, but now, even those who don’t snack daily on a diet of politics can tell you his name is Rod Rosenstein, the man who is rumored to have taken down FBI Director James Comey. But who is Rod Rosenstein, and is Rod Rosenstein Donald Trump’s latest fall guy? And perhaps the most asked question is whether FBI Director James Comey got the ax from President Trump because of Rod Rosenstein.

FBI Director James Comey is not the first person to get canned by President Trump, and there is buzz that he might not be the last. Trump fired Michael Flynn recently and hiring Flynn might be the appointment that Donald Trump regrets most in retrospect. But rumors continue to circulate that Steve Bannon’s head might be on the chopping block, as Bannon continues to have a difficult relationship with Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner, according to the Inquisitr. It’s unclear if the problems between Bannon and Kushner is simply a power struggle, or if the issues are rooted in the rumors that Steve Bannon is an anti-Semite.

But Rod Rosenstein might also be on his way out of the door, but it sounds like he is threatening to quit rather than stressing about getting fired. But who is Rod Rosenstein, where did he come from, and how did he rise to the position of Deputy Attorney General under Jeff Sessions? Well, Rod Rosenstein was just appointed to the position of Deputy Attorney General a week before the news-making firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Prior to finding himself in the cross hair of the American public, Rod Rosenstein had approval from both sides of the aisle, as he was one of three attorneys appointed by the Bush administration that was asked to stay on through the Obama administration. Before that, Rosenstein was the U.S. attorney for the state of Maryland, which tends to lean heavily Democrat, and Rod Rosenstein is a Republican.

Rod Rosenstein comes with an impressive cv, as he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business with a degree in economics, summa cum laude, and then Rosenstein served as editor of the Harvard Law Review while he was working on his J.D. at Harvard Law School.

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Before his name was propelled into headlines around the world, Rod Rosenstein was described by colleagues as the “poster child for the professional, competent, ethical, and fair-minded prosecutor,” but now it is anyone’s guess how Republicans and Democrats would describe Rosenstein.

The scenario that put Rod Rosenstein on the national stage was as one of the prosecutors appointed to the team that investigated the Clinton involvement in the Whitewater Development Corporation. Philip Heymann, the Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton stated that he would trust Rod Rosenstein in any situation.

“If there was a case where I was worried there was a perception we were being unfair, I would trust him [Rosenstein] to do the right thing and to do the job.”

Rod Rosenstein is universally thought of as a straight shooter, and it was likely to his benefit that he did not campaign with or for Donald Trump. But now, Democrats and Republicans alike on Capitol Hill want to get the true story about exactly who decided that FBI Director James Comey should go, and whether or not Rod Rosenstein was put into the position of fall guy for Donald Trump. So now the Democrats, in particular, want Rod Rosenstein to come back to Capitol Hill next week to lay out his role in FBI Director James Comey’s firing. For now, Rosenstein is only answering questions in closed-door meetings.

But even though Rod Rosenstein is not shouting from the rooftops that Donald Trump set him up to be the fall guy for the termination of FBI Director James Comey, an unlikely source is coming forward to admit the Rosenstein indeed was used as a human shield for the White House and Donald Trump, and that is Donald Trump himself.

But before Donald Trump admitted that James Comey was on his way out long before Rod Rosenstein was asked to write a report on Comey, every level of the Trump administration came forward to say that it was Rod Rosenstein’s idea to fire Comey, and that includes Vice President Pence.

“The president took strong and decisive leadership here. By accepting the recommendation of the deputy attorney general to remove Director Comey as the head of the FBI.”

But now, in a move that some are calling incredibly unprofessional, Trump is contradicting Pence and several White House spokespersons by telling NBC’s Lester Holt that he had it in for Comey since before he even took his oath, and that Rosenstein and his report played no role at all.

“I was going to fire Comey. I was going to fire regardless of recommendation. He made a recommendation, but regardless of recommendation I was going to fire Comey.”

Trump was clear that he disliked Comey, who he believes put the FBI in disarray. Oddly, Trump refers to Comey as a “grandstander” and a “showboat.”

It is still unclear whether or not Rod Rosenstein really threatened to quit over being pushed in front of the firing squad over Comey’s firing, but inside sources say that Rosenstein was “furious.”

Do you think that Rod Rosenstein’s recommendation that FBI Director James Comey be fired was what caused Donald Trump to pull the trigger and can Comey?

[Featured Image by Win McNamee/Getty Images]

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