Eric Columbus @EricColumbus 10h
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THREAD: The key player here is Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Rosenstein. I spent 5 yrs in the DAG’s office under Obama. Please indulge me.
Rosenstein is a rare breed – a Bush political appointee who Obama kept on for eight years, as U.S. Attorney for Maryland. (2/22)
Rosenstein was particularly beloved by then-Senator Barbara Mikulski, at whose recommendation Obama kept him. (3/22)
Dems praised Rosenstein at his DAG confirmation hearing, he was confirmed 94-6, and he took office on April 25 (4/22)
It's no coincidence that the Comey firing took place now. Trump laundered it through Rosenstein to boost its legitimacy. (5/22)
Rosenstein's letter to Sessions blasts Comey's handling of Clinton case in terms that could have been written by a Clinton staffer. (6/22)
But one thing Rosenstein's letter doesn't do and it took me a second read to note this is expressly recommend Comey be fired. (7/22)
Sure, it comes very, very close to doing so. The title is "Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI" and it has language like this: (8/22)
"FBI is unlikely 2 regain public/congressional trust until has Director who understands gravity of mistakes & pledges never 2 repeat."(9/22)
But it never expressly recommends that POTUS fire Comey. Is this deliberate? Who knows. (10/22)
Quite possibly Rosenstein, like most of us, thought Comey screwed up but didn't want him fired with Russia investigation pending. (11/22)
Yet Sessions wanted a memo on Comey's sins, and Rosenstein felt he had to oblige his boss . . . (12/22)
. . . as long as he didn't have to expressly say something he didn't believe, i.e. that Comey should be fired now. (13/22)
I suspect that the letter's final paragraph whose sentences fit together awkwardly was highly negotiated. (14/22)
Why does any of this matter? Sessions is recused from Russia, so it falls to Rosenstein to decide whether to appoint special counsel.(15/22)
Rosenstein is no dummy. He knows that no one buys that Trump/Sessions wanted to fire Comey for actions they praised at the time! (16/22)
And he cares about DOJ's reputation. He's not a hack -- he's been at DOJ for 27 years, under five different presidents. (17/22)
Note his language about the FBI -- he worries that it now lacks "public and congressional trust." Same could be said now about DOJ. (18/22)
Appointing a special counsel would help DOJ regain that trust -- both with the public and with Congress. (19/22)
Sure, he's not likely to get much pushback from this Congress, but if Dems win House or Senate in 2018, all hell could break loose. (20/22)
Comey did the wrong thing on 10/28 because he feared hell from Congress. Rosenstein could do the right thing for the same reason! (21/22)
I think he'll do it. Would it shock me if he didn't? No, because after 2015, as you may have noticed, shock ceased to be a thing. (22/22)