The U.S. midterm election on November 6 will decide if the House and/or Senate will change from the current Republican majority to a Democratic majority. While the parties are do not differ much from each other, a few high political issues (and financial consequences) are at stake. The currently most important one is the Senate confirmation of the arch-conservative Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. The Democrats are trying all they can to delay the confirmation process with the hope to move it towards a post election session in which they may have a majority. A majority might even give the Democrats a chance to impeach Trump.
Except Kavanaugh, who will by then likely have passed the confirmation, the Democrats have nothing big to run on. The Mueller investigation had no serious results so far. The economy is still running reasonably well except for the poor. A spike in oil prices because of Trump’s sanctions against Iran will only come after the election. Trump ratings are negative but not so much that it will have a serious impact on the election. The Democrats need something big.
This is the context of a sensational New York Times story – Rod Rosenstein Suggested Secretly Recording Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment – which seems to be designed to give Trump a reason to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Andrew Prokop at Vox summarizes its current state:
Did Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein seriously suggest to top Justice Department officials last year that someone should secretly tape President Donald Trump?
Or did he make an obviously sarcastic comment that he never intended anyone take seriously?
A new report from the New York Times’s Adam Goldman and Michael Schmidt says it was the former — and adds that Rosenstein also talked about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. (Neither ended up happening.) The reporters’ sources are anonymous people “briefed either on the events themselves or on memos” written by former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe and others.
But a separate report from the Washington Post’s Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky quotes an anonymous source who was in the room and disputes the account given to the Times. Per this source, Rosenstein was rebutting a suggestion by McCabe that the Justice Department open an investigation into Trump, and said something along the lines of, “What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?”
Who’s right? The consequences could be enormous. It was Rosenstein who appointed Mueller as special counsel back in May 2017, and it’s Rosenstein who continues to oversee Mueller’s Russia investigation. Well before these new stories President Trump has privately mused about firing Rosenstein (or Sessions, or Mueller), so he could put someone he views as more loyal in charge of the Russia probe.
Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel berates the NYT for publishing the piece:
NYT Gives Trump His Excuse to Fire Rod Rosenstein
The NYT has an inflammatory article claiming that Rod Rosenstein floated recording the President and/or invoking the 25th Amendment in the days after Trump fired Jim Comey.
…
The insinuation is clear: in an attempt to accuse Rosenstein of things known to set off the President (notably, being recorded), someone took memos McCabe wrote and read them to people who would then leak them to the NYT.
If the NYT version of the incident is true, it indeed would give Trump plenty of reasons to fire Rosenstein (and Mueller and Session.) Several prominent Trump supporters urge him to do such:
Fox News host Laura Ingraham tweeted that Rosenstein “needs to go. Today.”
The president’s son Donald Trump Jr. tweeted: “No one is shocked that these guys would do anything in their power to undermine” the president.
Eric Bolling, a former Fox News host who is in contact with the president, said that “if the allegation is true, absolutely fire Rosenstein. No one could find fault in that decision now.”
But firing Rosenstein now would be a huge mistake. It would be perceived as a Saturday Night Massacre:
The Saturday Night Massacre was a series of events which took place in the United States on the evening of Saturday, October 20, 1973, during the Watergate scandal. U.S. President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox; Richardson refused and resigned effective immediately. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; Ruckelshaus refused, and also resigned. Nixon then ordered the third-most-senior official at the Justice Department, Solicitor General Robert Bork, to fire Cox. Bork considered resigning, but did as Nixon asked.
It is obvious who would be served by such a ‘slaughter’. It would not help Trump or the Republicans at all. It would be huge gift to the Democrats who have long prepared for such an eventuality. Dozens of groups aligned with the Democrats have prepared a campaign to be launched the very moment Trump announces the firing of Mueller, Session or Rosenstein:
[W]e’re preparing to hold emergency “Nobody Is Above the Law” rallies around the country in the event they are needed—900+ of them and counting, in every state, with 400,000 RSVPs to date!
Join us.
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Such a campaign now could be used to get-out-the-votes on November 6. It would be immensely helpful for the Democrats and increase their chance to capture the House and/or Senate.
In defense of publishing the piece the NYT’s deputy managing editor Matt Purdy says:
… this story is based on months of reporting.
So why is it coming out now? The answer seems obvious. The NYT report is a trap, timed for the upcoming election. It is not an attack on Rod Rosenstein, but on Trump. It is supposed to goad him into an impulsive reaction and to commit a Saturday night massacre of his own. Nixon’s ‘massacre’ was highly negative for him and helped to bring him down.
Trump did not became president by being stupid. I don’t think he will fall for this.