While we’re on the eve of battle with Democrats over Brett Kavanaugh, let's not forget the Rod Rosenstein watch, which could be just a head fake. Removing Rosenstein would create another political headache, though liberals are worried that the president will fire the deputy attorney general this Thursday, the day of the scheduled hearing of allegations of sexual misconduct against Judge Kavanaugh who has been nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court. The allegations are unsubstantiated, unprovable, and lack in evidence. They’re also over 30-plus years old. That in itself doesn’t make it less serious, but when there are no corroborative witnesses because they all refute your story—the credibility is called into question. And both allegations have more holes than Swiss cheese.
Yet, back to Rosenstein, the deputy AG has been embattled for months, and he’s ready to be fired. That was reported eons ago—and yet, he remains. Rosenstein is overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is now quarterbacking the FBI’s initial counterintelligence probe into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Firing him would send shockwaves, or at least in the minds of the elite news media that obsessed over this story all day yesterday; Kavanaugh was barely mentioned until the evening hours.
Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein has come back into the spotlight over a New York Times article that reported he suggested secretly record the interactions within the Trump White House in order to build support among his cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him from office. Rosenstein strongly denied the story, and said he has never witnessed anything from President Trump that would suggest the 25th Amendment would be necessary to even consider. Later, NBC News reported that Rosenstein said this in jest, but Lisa Page, the mistress to disgraced FBI Agent Peter Strzok, who was fired over his anti-Trump texts, reportedly wasn’t so sure if the deputy AG was joking (via Daily Beast):
A debate with major implications has broken out over whether Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was being sarcastic when, in the spring of 2017, he reportedly talked about covertly recording President Donald Trump.
A former career Justice Department official who was in the room when the topic arose told The Daily Beast he believes the deputy attorney general was being sarcastic. But another person in the room at the time has indicated she took it seriously.
Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page was present for Rosenstein's comments on secret recordings and did not believe he was joking or being sarcastic, according to two people familiar with the events in question. A spokesperson for Page declined to comment for this story.
[…]
Rosenstein attended meetings on May 16, 2017, where he reportedly discussed the 25th amendment and taping the president, the Times reported. Page attended one of the meetings and wrote a memo about it, multiple outlets have reported. Page, who left the FBI after being embroiled in a scandal involving sending text messages critical of Trump, did not think Rosenstein’s comments about covertly taping the president were in jest, the two sources told The Daily Beast.
Page’s assessment differs from the assessments of unnamed Justice Department officials cited in reports in The Washington Post and NBC News, as well as the assessment of the meeting attendee who spoke to The Daily Beast. Those outlets reported that people who heard Rosenstein’s comments say he was joking. The New York Times’ initial story also cited an unnamed source, referred to them by the Justice Department and with firsthand knowledge, who said Rosenstein was being sarcastic when he made the remark about recording the president.
If Rosenstein truly meant that Justice Department officials should covertly record the president, the White House would view it as an extraordinary act of insubordination and, possibly, grounds for Rosenstein’s firing. If, however, Rosenstein wasn’t being serious, then the comment would be forgivable in some quarters.
Whatever the case, we’ll know his fate on Thursday. There is a deep state. The elite media thought this was a cuckoo idea, but The New York Times publishing an anonymous op-ed from a supposed senior Trump administration official declaring their allegiance to the anti-Trump resistance once again proved this isn’t nonsense. Also, who do you think leaked the conversations between former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn? So, I’ not saying the allegation is totally true, but I wouldn’t be shocked if that turned out to be the case.
Strzok, whose extramarital affair with Page caused the FBI much embarrassment, texted Page tens of thousands of times, throughout the 2016 election. He said they would stop a Trump presidency, whatever that means when Page was freaking out over the prospect. He also referred to an insurance policy in a text about their meeting with then-Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe. That policy is allegedly a reference to the infamous Trump dossier, which was funded by Democrats and the Clinton campaign to get dirt on Trump. The Clinton crew retained Fusion GPS, a research firm, who then hired ex-MI6 Christopher Steele to compile this piece of partisan opposition research. It was allegedly used as evidence to obtain a spy warrant against Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. It’s a mess. And one the DOJ would find harder to clean up if Rosenstein was serious about wiretapping Trump, dragooning Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to push it, and building support for Trump’s removal. There are some things that are too good to be true. I think this is one of those stories. At the same time, the fact no one who supports this president would find it shocking if the NYT piece was 100% true is a sad commentary.
Oh, and Lisa Page was asked about Strzok's texts. He said they showed his patriotism for our country in his testimony over the summer. Page, however, was more blunt: the anti-Trump texts mean exactly what they say.
I think the overall picture is that the DOJ is still a mess.