Rod Rosenstein Still Has Job — Maybe: Will Meet With Donald Trump Thursday Amid Confusion After Kelly Meeting

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, whom political experts expected to be fired or to resign on Monday as Inquisitr reported, still appears to have his job after meeting at the White House Monday with Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly. But reports over what happened in Rosenstein’s Monday morning meeting with Kelly remain conflicted, with at least one news agency saying that Rosenstein did, in fact, give Kelly his resignation.

According to a Bloomberg News report, Rosenstein “verbally resigned to [Kelly], according to one person familiar with the matter.”

But a report from CNN was less clear, saying only that “Rosenstein met with chief of staff John Kelly and spoke with Trump, who is in New York.”

“At the request of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he and President Trump had an extended conversation to discuss the recent news stories,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement, according to CNN. “Because the President is at the United Nations General Assembly and has a full schedule with leaders from around the world, they will meet on Thursday when the President returns to Washington, DC.”

NBC News reported that the decision on whether Rosenstein will keep his job or not has been “postponed.”

The political site Axios had earlier reported that Rosenstein had resigned, but shortly after noon on Monday, the site updated its story to say that “Rosenstein has verbally ‘offered to resign’ in discussions with White House Chief of Staff Kelly, according to a source close to Rosenstein, but as of now, it’s unclear whether his resignation has been accepted.”

Due to the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, it has been Rosenstein’s responsibility to oversee the investigation being run by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. Despite repeated objections from Trump — who has branded the Russia investigation a “hoax” and a “witch hunt,” — Rosenstein has allowed Mueller to operate largely unimpeded in the Russia investigation. Mueller’s investigation has so far extracted guilty pleas from Trump’s 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort, his national security adviser Michael Flynn, and a campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, Fox News recounts.

Representative Adam Schiff, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee — which has conducted its own Russia investigation — said on Twitter that Rosenstein should keep his job.

“Under no circumstances should Rod Rosenstein resign. This would place the Mueller investigation in even greater jeopardy,” Schiff wrote. “Rosenstein should continue to do his job, protect the independence of the DOJ, and if the President intends to obstruct justice, force Trump to fire him.”