At his Wednesday press gathering Donald Trump suggested that he might not meet with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, so he could keep his schedule open for watching the Senate testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. Instead, Trump might put their face to face off until Friday or … whenever. Whether by accident or by design, it’s a narrative that seems to have, temporarily at least, run out of steam.
The story of Rod Rosenstein’s “rebellion” began last week as a clear exercise in the Trump White House’s ability to plant a story in the media, nurse it into a firestorm, and sustain it as a top-of-the-news hour item even in the midst of raging interest in accusations against court nominee Kavanaugh. The Trump team was successful on all these points, and they even managed to get in an effective coda by sliding out numerous stories that Rosenstein was “emotional” and that he feared “being disparaged by Trump” more than losing his position. It was a media outreach effort that pushed the idea that Rosenstein was weak, flighty, inconsistent, and fearful—and it blew a huge amount of air out of possible responses to his dismissal by doing a dry run of that event and sprinkling it was chaos.
The whole thing was a triumph for Team Trump … except the ending. Because so far there hasn’t been an ending. And Republicans don’t seem to know what they want to do next with this story.
As Politico reports, finding someone who can step into Rosenstein’s role without immediately also coming under fire is turning out to be something of a chore. While Trump has to be ecstatic about the possibility of solicitor Noel Francisco taking control of the Russia investigation, considering his history of attacking both the FBI and Hillary Clinton, Francisco would not automatically assume the remainder of Rosenstein’s role.
They haven’t found many obvious takers.
“I suspect they are all kind of looking up and down the hallways trying to figure out how to find someone who has the detachment and credibility that Rosenstein has had,” said Victoria Bassetti, a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice and a former top Democratic aide to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“They’re going to be opening a lot of doors saying, ‘Can you do this?’”
It’s a clear sign that the Rosenstein story is not just being overshadowed by events surrounding the Supreme Court, the narrative has also been somewhat derailed by the inability to pin down a replacement.
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