The Daily - Rod Rosenstein’s Insurrection

Episode Date: September 24, 2018

Days after being named deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein was so alarmed by what he was seeing inside the White House that he proposed a series of extreme measures. Will those proposals now cost him his job? Guest: Michael S. Schmidt, who covers national security for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, days after being named Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein was so alarmed by what he was seeing inside the White House that he proposed a series of extreme measures. Will those proposals now cost him his job? And new allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh. It's Monday, September 24th.

Mike Schmidt, where did this most recent investigation start for you? even more than that. My colleague Adam Goldman and I set out to try and look at the period of time between when Jim Comey was fired in May of 2017 and when Bob Mueller was appointed as the special counsel. It's an eight-day period of time. What happened inside the Justice Department? What happened inside the Justice Department? How did Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who was overseeing the Russia investigation, make the extraordinary and ultimately monumental decision to appoint Bob Mueller as a special counsel? And Mike, why did those eight days seem like an important period of time? In a sense, it was the time that time forgot. It was incredibly important how they came to that decision.

But it ends with Mueller being appointed, so it often got overlooked. And we never sort of turned around and looked back and said, OK, what happened after Comey was fired? What did the FBI try and do? What was going through Rod Rosenstein's mind? How did he come to appoint Mueller? And, Mike, why were you interested in Rod Rosenstein's role in all of this, in particular, during this eight-day period? He was in this incredibly unique position because as part of the Comey firing, he wrote a memo for the president that basically gave the rationale for it. America's brand new Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein provided the ammunition and the altitude for President Donald Trump to drop a political bombshell.

And his brand new Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has a bipartisan background, recommended to the president that the president fire James Comey as attorney general. It appears to center around Comey's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails, ironically enough. It sharply criticized how Comey had handled the Clinton email investigation. Right. The public lost trust in the FBI after Director Comey bungled the Hillary Clinton email case, he claims. I cannot defend the director's handling of the investigation, case, he claims. I cannot defend the director's handling of the investigation, Rosenstein writes, and I do not understand his refusal to accept that he was mistaken. Then Comey gets fired and all of the criticism comes down on Rosenstein. The Democrats say, why is it that you helped the president come up with a sham reason to get rid

of Comey? And how do we know that it's a sham reason to get rid of Comey? And how do we know that it's a sham reason, the justification in Rosenstein's letter? Well, it was never all that believable that the only reason that Trump fired Comey was because he was too mean to Hillary Clinton and had been too tough on her. It was hard to believe that in the face or the backdrop of an investigation into ties between Donald Trump's campaign and Russia. And what happens in the days after Comey is fired is that Rosenstein is sharply criticized in the press for apparently creating this fake reason to fire Comey. The FBI begins pressuring Rosenstein behind the scenes to appoint a special counsel. Rosenstein starts considering candidates.

And then on May 16th, we report that Comey had written a contemporaneous memo about an interaction he had with Trump. A day after that story comes out, he appoints Mueller to be the special counsel. some of which Rosenstein has a little control over, like drafting a letter, and others he doesn't, like the disclosure of the fact that the president asked Comey to end the investigation into Flynn, are all coming together and make Rosenstein feel like he has to appoint an independent investigator of this all. Rosenstein apparently felt that there were too many questions about the independence of the investigation that he had to go to the next level to appoint a special counsel who has some protections from outside influence from the White House. Okay, so that's the backdrop for your latest reporting. What have you learned about this eight-day period? We've learned about the different measures that Rosenstein and others considered as they confronted the fallout from the Comey firing. They didn't completely understand

the president's behavior. They weren't sure what he was up to. They weren't sure that he may even be fit enough for the office. And we have learned about some of those things they considered. And what did they consider, particularly Rosenstein? Rosenstein raised the prospect of wearing a wire to record his conversations with the president. conversations with the president. And he spoke to FBI officials about the idea of trying to recruit others to invoke the 25th Amendment to oust the president from office. Mike, let's take these one at a time because they're pretty extraordinary. What was Rosenstein discussing with the president that he thought he needed a recording of? Rosenstein thought that the president was not taking the process of picking a new FBI director as seriously as he should. He thought that it was chaotic and emblematic of the larger dysfunction within the administration.

And who did he make this suggestion in front of? Because it feels like the kind of thing you would say to very trusted people around you. Rosenstein makes it in a meeting with senior federal law enforcement me, that feel like they reflect some very problematic behaviors and instincts from this president in this moment. And then I will do what exactly? It's not clear what he wanted to do with those recordings. But what we do know Rosenstein was also talking about at the time was trying to recruit others to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Right, the second of his pretty extraordinary suggestions. Correct. And to whom did Rosenstein make the suggestion of invoking the 25th Amendment? It was made to Andrew McCabe, the acting FBI director at the time, who memorialized it in a contemporaneous memo he wrote. And how would that have worked exactly, invoking the 25th Amendment? To use it, you need for a portion of the cabinet and a portion of Congress to essentially declare that the president's unfit for office. And Rosenstein is

saying that he believes he could recruit Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John Kelly, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security at the time, who is now the White House Chief of Staff, to go along with this. Huh. So he expressed some confidence that he believed he could bring those people along with him. Correct. So how serious do you think that he was about this? Is he kicking around an idea the way that people do?

Or is he actually proposing putting this into action? Like, this is not an idea that Rosenstein was sort of batting around with his friends in a backyard barbecue. It was something that he raised in a meeting with the top officials at the Justice Department and the FBI. Which in and of itself conveys a certain level of seriousness. Correct. Comey has just been fired. They're trying to figure out what to do. And he really struggled in the moment. He was seen as unnerved. He got emotional. And he was under enormous amount of pressure. He was being criticized in the press at a level that he had never seen of himself before.

And he was essentially the top law enforcement official because making a decision of whether to escalate the Russia investigation to a level that he knows will completely alter the trajectory of Donald Trump's presidency. And what's our understanding of why all this talk never seems to have gone anywhere and turned into action? I think that some folks thought that these ideas were pretty off the wall and went too far. And ultimately, Rosenstein makes an extraordinary decision, and that's to appoint Mueller. And that is the way the questions around Trump's firing of Comey are dealt with. So after proposing these two pretty extreme proposals, he ends up during this eight-day period settling on a more conventional route, which is appointing a special counsel who

will investigate everything that's been happening and not require these more exotic solutions. Correct. But we also don't know what else Rosenstein may have done. All we're talking about here are two ideas that were raised and ultimately, as far as we know, not followed through on. What we do know is that he ends up appointing Mueller as the special counsel. And by doing that, sort of having a prosecutor who has some protections from the political whims of the president and the White House, that this will be an investigation conducted free of politics. We'll be right back. tonight there are so many questions how was this said how serious were these suggestions and tonight rosenstein himself now responding

rosenstein vehemently denying the claims saying in a statement the new york times story is inaccurate and factually incorrect. I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. I don't know where the standard is at the New York Times, but when it's just anonymous all the time and they're just willing to run with it, it seems outrageous. Who do you think might have been motivated to leak this information to the New York Times? That's sort of the nuts

of what are being speculated about right now. I wonder if it's coming from someone who wants Rosenstein fired because it obviously doesn't make him look very good. The Times says their sources are people who were briefed on the fact that Rod Rosenstein had said that to other officials and sources who were

briefed on a memo. Those are their sources. So let's talk about the response to this reporting in the past few days, because there has been a lot of it. What has been the response from Rosenstein himself? Rosenstein contested the story and said it was not accurate. had raised the idea of wearing a wire to record conversations with the president, but that he had done so sarcastically. That did not add up with the totality of our other reporting, which was that Rosenstein was serious when he said it. He had been asked in the meeting whether he was joking. He said that he was not and then raised the prospect of wiring up FBI officials who were going in themselves to meet with Trump about being the next director.

Hmm. The government putting forward an additional source in response to reporting does not seem like a conventional tactic. I can't think of many times I've heard of that happening before. The Justice Department and the White House went to great lengths to try and undermine this story. Rosenstein sees himself as a protector of Mueller, and there is a fear that if anything happens to Rosenstein, the president could more easily make a move against Mueller, restrain Mueller or get rid of Mueller and the investigation. So the Justice Department tried to undermine the story to try and prevent this notion from taking hold. And the White House tried to undermine the idea that the 25th Amendment was

discussed because that is something the president is incredibly sensitive to. So the response is not actually what you might expect. It's not just the White House trying to deny this story to save face. It's also the Justice Department trying to downplay it to protect the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and his ability to do this investigation. Correct. They're trying to protect Rosenstein as much as possible to create doubt about the story so the president doesn't turn around and get rid of Rosenstein. And getting rid of Rosenstein could theoretically mean eventually getting rid of Mueller. Correct. That's the fear, that if you got rid of Rosenstein could theoretically mean eventually getting rid of Mueller. Correct. That's the fear, that if you got rid of Rosenstein, who has gone to great lengths to protect Mueller,

Trump would try and get a political ally in there who would do what Trump wants, which is end the investigation. And Mike, what do you say to what this additional source that the Department of Justice is putting forward is claiming? What's your response to that? On this, we sort of ended up with two buckets of reporting. In one of them was the anonymous official the Justice Department gave us who said that they were in the meeting and that Rosenstein had been sarcastic. In suggesting the wearing of the wire. Correct.

In the other bucket was a wide range of reporting that involved speaking to many different people who my colleague Adam Goldman and I thought had more credibility and more detail about what occurred and provided us with evidence that Rosenstein had indeed been asked whether it was a joke and had dismissed it. When you say evidence, what kind of evidence can anyone ever provide about a meeting that was many, many months ago. These meetings were memorialized in FBI memos at the time that documented conversations that Andrew McCabe, the acting FBI director, had with Rosenstein. So, Mike, as a reporter, you're weighing two things at this moment.

The single source put forward by the Department of Justice who claims that this suggestion was sarcastic, and interviews and documents, including McCabe's memorialized notes from these meetings, suggesting that they were quite serious. And it sounds like you as a reporter decide that there is more weight to the collective reporting of these sources and these mellows. Correct. With unnamed source reporting, where we are relying on people to speak under the condition of anonymity to us, we are forced to weigh a wide range of different things when we come to the determination about how to use that information.

How specific was the information? What was the person's motivation? How reliable have they been in the past? And how much does it fit into the larger narrative of other things that we understand were going on at the time? Does this sort of fit into other stories or other reporting that we have? Does this help fill out the picture in a way that sort of makes sense? And what about the 25th Amendment suggestion? Has Rosenstein or anyone at the Department of Justice at all suggested that that was done in a sarcastic manner? The Justice Department has put no one forward

to say that the discussions about the 25th Amendment were done in jest. Rosenstein did put out a second statement in which he said he had never advocated for removing the president. Well, that wording seems very intriguing. He said he had never advocated using the 25th Amendment, but he's not saying that he didn't propose it.

Correct. I'll let Rosenstein speak for himself on that. Got it. So I also want to talk about the public response to this reporting, because it's been really intense on both sides, with people understanding that this reporting could result in the president potentially firing Rod Rosenstein. On the one hand, people on the left would be very uncomfortable with that happening because of what that might mean for the future of the Mueller investigation, as we've talked about. On the other hand, people on the right would be uncomfortable because if Trump fires Rosenstein, it could potentially add to possible evidence of obstruction of justice, which began with the firing of Comey. So a lot of people seem to not like this reporting. Yeah, I understand that as we follow the different threads of the Trump story, every piece of reporting is not going to be accepted with open arms. And that's certainly

the case here. But that's not really our job. Our job is to dive in to what happened and come to a place where we feel confident about the facts that we have. Finally, Mike, let's talk about the likelihood that Trump actually does fire Rosenstein, which is what both sides of this fear. What do you expect is going to happen here? Is Rosenstein now a marked man? Many people believe that. I got a call on Friday night from someone fairly close to the president who said, why is it that the president hasn't done anything against Rosenstein? We don't understand this. And I said, well, you know, the president a lot better than I do. And you have a lot more access to him than we do.

So what do you think? He said, well, we just don't understand what's going on. We thought that he would get very angry and try and do something. Our colleague Maggie Haberman has done reporting that shows that the president has been sort of even-tempered about this. And why do we think that would be? about this. And why do we think that would be? Well, the president has wanted to get rid of Rosenstein and Sessions for over a year now since when Mueller was appointed. What we do know is that even before the story, he was planning to get rid of them after the midterm elections. That happens at the beginning of November. We're almost there. And the president probably figures if I've waited this long,

I might as well continue to wait a little bit longer. So he may essentially be biding his time. It looks like it, at least for now. You know, as we're talking about all this, I can't help thinking of the op-ed that The Times ran about two weeks ago, written by a senior administration official who also recounted a discussion of taking pretty extreme measures to oust the president, including invoking the 25th Amendment. And neither of us know who wrote that op-ed, but if we believe that there is some kind of a Trump resistance from within the administration, given what you've now reported, is it fair to say

that the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, Rod Rosenstein, is a part of that? I don't know whether he's a part of that, but what we do know is that in May of 2017, less than four months after Donald Trump took office, his senior officials were already talking about the 25th Amendment. We're already talking about whether or not they should try to end his presidency. Yes. Michael, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Here's what else you need to know today.

Here's what else you need to know today. On Sunday, after nearly a week of tense negotiations, Christine Blasey Ford agreed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about her allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Dr. Blasey had originally asked for the FBI to investigate her claim that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school before she would agree to testify, but has since backed down from that demand.

Several details surrounding the public hearing, now scheduled for Thursday, remain unresolved, including whether senators or their staff will question Dr. Blasey. But in a statement, her lawyer said that those issues, quote, will not impede the hearing taking place. Do you have an open mind on this? And is there anything that Dr. Ford could say

that would persuade you to vote against Kavanaugh's nomination? Honestly. On Sunday, a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Lindsey Graham, said he did not expect Dr. Blasey's testimony to change his support for Kavanaugh. I'm just being honest. Unless there's something more, no, I'm not going to ruin Judge Kavanaugh's life over this. But she should come forward. She should have her say, she will be respectfully treated. A few hours later, The New Yorker reported that Senate Democrats are investigating a new claim of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh from his time as an undergraduate at Yale.

Deborah Ramirez told the magazine that during a drunken party, Kavanaugh thrust his penis into her face as she pushed him away. In response, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein, called for postponing Thursday's hearing with Dr. Blasey and asked that the FBI investigate the latest allegations. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.