Day 613: Trump’s likely plan to stem news on Kavanaugh testimony? Firing Rosenstein

Trump expected to oust deputy attorney general Thursday

News was abuzz and scattered Monday morning: deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein had resigned. Actually, he was fired. To clarify, he was on his way to the White House where he might be fired. Or instead of being fired, he would resign before the Donald Trump administration could fire him.

Instead, a mysterious White House meeting with administration officials came and went and Rosenstein still had his job.

Just not potentially for long.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders announced that Rosenstein would meet with Trump Thursday. Few people expect Rosenstein to have his job by the end of the day.

Thursday just so happens to be the day that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser are set to testify regarding the latter’s claim of sexual assault by Kavanaugh when the two were in high school. Republicans are nervous about such testimony just weeks before the midterms elections and how it will look voting to confirm a man who is credibly being accused of heinous actions.

If Trump’s actions don’t feel like a coincidence, it’s because they aren’t.

According to a source briefed on Trump’s thinking, Trump decided that firing Rosenstein would knock Kavanaugh out of the news, potentially saving his nomination and Republicans’ chances for keeping the Senate. “The strategy was to try and do something really big,” the source said. The leak about Rosenstein’s resignation could have been the result, and it certainly had the desired effect of driving Kavanaugh out of the news for a few hours.

If Rosenstein is fired, it brings substantial flux to the Robert Mueller probe, as Rosenstein is overseeing the investigation since attorney general Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself. With Rosenstein gone, a Trump ally may oversee the investigation and could curtail it or even shut it down entirely.

Using one crisis to diminish news of another? Positively Trumpian.

613 days in, 849 to go

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