The Senate isn't as crazy as the House. The nominee will be DOA if it's someone who will wave their hand and shutdown the Russia investigation. A complete sycophant is probably off the table.

I've never before wanted so badly for someone named Craig to be correct.

Word has been that Mattis may be next, and he recently has been standing up to Russia.

Maybe Mattis has been smoked out as Lodestar?

One can only hope.

Well, ...

Once again, Jeff Sessions has his head back on the Trump chopping block:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.24a6606832ec

‘I don’t have an attorney general’: Trump escalates his attacks on Jeff Sessions

President Trump escalated his attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday, offering a scathing assessment of his performance on the job and in his confirmation hearing.

“I don’t have an attorney general. It’s very sad,” Trump said in an interview with Hill.TV, in which he also said the former senator from Alabama came off as “mixed up and confused” when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January 2017.

...

“I’m disappointed in the attorney general for many reasons, and you understand that,” he told reporters.

In the interview, Trump suggested he appointed Sessions out of blind loyalty.

“I’m so sad over Jeff Sessions because he came to me,” Trump said. “He was the first senator that endorsed me. And he wanted to be attorney general, and I didn’t see it.”

...

Trump did not offer a firm answer when asked about Sessions’s future by Hill.TV.

“We’ll see what happens,” he said. “A lot of people have asked me to do that. And I guess I study history, and I say I just want to leave things alone, but it was very unfair what he did.”

“We’ll see how it goes with Jeff,” Trump added. “I’m very disappointed in Jeff. Very disappointed.”

Three words that Trump spoke here are particularly amusing...

If a job made me as sad as Trump says he always is, I would quit.

But he only employs the best people....

It's not the job. The world never meets a narcissist's expectations.

Mattis breaks his long media silence to write an op ed saying he is undermining the president? That seems hardly likely. In a career of being apolitical and working as SECDEF to keep the military apolitical that would be an odd move.

The author of that op ed works in communications. It's hard to imagine a career national security professional seeing that letter as a good idea. It diminishes the US further than the sitting president already has.

Oddly enough, with both Sessions and Rosenstein being on Trump's purge list, it seems that both their jobs are more secure than if only one of them was in the crosshairs: Trump would have to replace both at the same time, making it an ugly process even if Republicans keep the House - which they won't.
Trump might be well advised to stick to his current DoJ heads.

I agree. Lodestar is not one of the career politicians. They just don't work like that. I was just being snide about Mattis's steadying even-keeled approach and Trump's erratic and ultra-paranoiac responses to Lodestar.

Which means they will be fired probably after the mid-terms because they "failed to meet expectations".

Their fate likely hinges on the make-up of the Senate. A 50-50 split or a 51-49 favoring dems and the two stay.

It's Rosenstein. Just resigned as a pre-emptive strike to getting fired.

This is some seriously bad news, quite possibly the beginning of the end of the independent investigation into election tampering.

Fired or resigned?

"It was not immediately clear whether he expected to be fired by Mr. Trump or whether he planned to resign. Justice Department officials said on Monday morning that he was on his way to the White House expecting to be fired. But over the weekend, Mr. Rosenstein called a White House official and said he was considering quitting, and a person close to the White House said he was resigning."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/u...ent-trump.html

It's the same thing that happened with Shulkin. White house leaks he resigned so they can use the vacancies act even though they actually fired him.

Does "I ******* quit this nonsense" constitute a "verbal resignation"?

In the interim, Noel Francisco, Solicitor general, would take over and might actual try to wrap up the Mueller probe before the Elections.

That's still an open question. Wow.

And maybe neither!

"NEWS- per source familiar, rod rosenstein is still the deputy attorney general as of right now.

he had a previously scheduled meeting at the WH at 12p, which he is at right now.

the axios report that he verbally resigned is false, though there was a conversation over the wknd."

https://twitter.com/politiCOHEN_/sta...56231123288066

I get the impression that neither the White House nor Rosenstein wants him to be in his current position. Rosenstein wants to be fired but the white house wants him to resign so they're stuck with each other.

Jonathon Swan is now saying Rosenstein has offered his resignation to Kelly.

Also worth noting Jonathon Swan is getting pummeled quite thoroughly for jumping out (and walking back) on this.

Trump doesn't have the balls to fire anyone, and someone on the level of Rosenstein doesn't get to get fired by only the Chief of Staff.
Rosenstein might be save after all.

If he doesn't resign, they can't use the vacancies act to fill his position with their own choice. They'd have to have his replacement approved by congress and that would require a guarantee that he wouldn't just fire Mueller as a hatchet man.

FWIW, there's a spreadsheet here of every departure from the Trump administration. 387 to date.

twitter.com/dylanmatt/status/1044259852334374912

Brilliant summary of the circus...

That's perfectly normal ...
... for a sinking ship.

"This may be the strangest day yet at the Trump White House. Rod Rosenstein was summoned to the WH to meet with John Kelly this morning. He expected to be fired. He wasn't. And now Rosenstein is attending a previously scheduled cabinet-level meeting (filling in for Sessions)"

https://twitter.com/jonkarl/status/1044261344562884610

Great find!

I liked this from Liverpoolmiss on badscience

Oh for crying out loud!

Are there positive reasons for working for Trump?

So far, about the only positive aspect that I have seen in working for Trump is that one may be able to make a small fortune by writing some sort of kiss-and-tell book about the experience.

Sacking him now would be catastrophic for the Republicans in the mid-term elections and yet I find it hard to believe trump would pay any regard to that if he wanted Rosenstein gone.

But he would pay attention to Seah Hannity....

From: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4...enstein-report
Fox News host Sean Hannity late Friday urged President Trump not to fire anyone following a New York Times report that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had proposed secretly taping conversations in the Oval Office last year...“I have a message for the president tonight. Under zero circumstances should the president fire anybody,” Hannity, a vocal ally of Trump, said during his program. "They are hoping and praying that the president does just that, that he gets mad, that he gets sick and tired of it” and turns it into a scandal, Hannity added.

Given the fact that Trump regularly communicates with Fox news personalities (with them serving as advisers/controllers), a warning from Hannity not to fire Rosenstein would go a long way.

If one thing comes out of this it will hopefully be the ability of pundits to pronounce "Rosenstein" correctly. (ends like "Frankenstein".)

Given the frequent "pillow talk" phone calls... in 50 years this will be known as "the Hannity Administration".
[emoji14]

An easy call for Hannity and Trump: it appeared in the NY Times! My god, it must be part of some devious liberal/communist plot.

Donald: don't fall for the bait! Promote Rosenstein.

I am curious and probably relevant: what does Putin recommend?

"Frankenstein" as in Dr. Victor or Dr. Frederick Frankenstein? :D

Good point!

<Blücher!>

A nothingburger, diverting attention from Kavanaugh perhaps?

Certainly the former, probably the latter. Diverting attention from the current stupidity with even more stupidity is something the administration has been remarkably good at.

Or is it Froderick?

Neigh!

Yep.
Scheduling the Trump-Rosenstein meeting on Thursday, the same day Dr. Ford testifies before the Senate judiciary committee, is probably no coincidence.

So the expectation is that if the testimony of Ford goes well for Kavanaugh, Rosenstein is safe, and if it looks bad for Kavanaigh, Rosenstein will lose his job?

what a mess.

I don't think so. Rosenstein is getting either fired or is resigning over the "record Trump/25th amendment" cherry on the cake allegations. Nothing to do with Kavanaugh. The timing, though, is no coincidence. He's trying to divide the coverage on Thursday.

There is zero chance that Rosenstein was serious about the 25th/getting wired
up thing. For one, unless they lock Trump in a room until 2020, there would be no way to make the 25th stick, and Rosenstein knows this. He is also way too close to the Mueller probe to allow himself to be a direct witness.
This looks very much like a hatchet job by Trump supporters.

Has anyone heard any word yet on the disposition of Rod Rosenstein?

After all, just the other day, Trump was talking about axing him. But then Trump got distracted when the UN laughed at him and by the Kavanaugh hearings so I was just wondering if Trump had decided to "flip" or "flop" about the Rosenstein issue.

The meeting was delayed until next week.