Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has verbally resigned to Chief of Staff John Kelly out of anticipation President Donald Trump will fire him, it was reported Monday
'He's expecting to be fired,' a source told Axios, which reported his firing.The White House has accepted his resignation, a source told Bloomberg News
Rosenstein is en route to the White House Monday morning to meet with Kelly.Trump is in New York for the U
N.General Assembly meeting.He denied a report in The New York Times last week that last year he suggested secretly recording the president to raise the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office
If Rosenstein's resignation is accepted Noel Francisco, the solicitor general, will be in charge of the Russia probe
Rosenstein was overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russia's role in the 2016 election
'I don't want to comment on it until I get all the facts,' Trump told Geraldo Rivera when asked about firing Rosenstein
'I haven't gotten all the facts, but certainly it's being looked at in terms of what took place
If anything took place and I'll make a determination sometime later, but I don't have the facts
' He also said it was Attorney General Jeff Sessions who hired Rosenstein.'He was hired by Jeff Sessions
I was not involved in that process.They hire their own deputies and people who work in the department,' Trump said
On Friday night, Trump slammed the 'bad ones' in the Justice Department following reports Rosenstein wanted to wear a wire to secretly record the president and discussed invoking the 25th Amendment
Speaking to a fired-up crowd at a rally in Missouri on Friday night, he said there was a 'lingering stench' in Justice 'and we're going to get rid of that'
He was in Springfield supporting Republican Senate nominee Josh Hawley, who is running against two-term Democratic senator Claire McCaskill
Hours after the New York Times broke the story, Trump said: 'Just look at what is being exposed in our Justice Department
'We have great people in the Department of Justice. .But you've got some real bad ones
You've seen what's happened at the FBI.They're all gone.'But there's a lingering stench and we're going to get rid of that, too
' The audience also broke out in chants of 'Kavanaugh' as the Supreme Court nominee faces sexual assault allegations
Trump defended his choice for the bench, saying: 'You talk about central casting, he was born for the U
S.Supreme Court.And it's going to happen.' He added: 'We have to fight for him, not worry about the other side
And by the way, women are for that more than anybody would understand.' Rosenstein suggested last year that he should make covert audio recordings of President Trump in order to build a case for removing him from office, according to the New York Times report
Rosenstein disputed that account on Friday, and a Justice Department official who was reportedly in the room when Rosenstein talked about using the 25th Amendment to end the Trump presidency says he was being sarcastic
He released a statement on Friday night saying: 'I never pursued or authorized recording the President and any suggestion that I have ever advocated for the removal of the President is absolutely false
' The 25th Amendment allows for a majority of the president's cabinet, or 'such other body as Congress may by law provide,' to decide if an Oval Office occupant is unable to carry out his duties – and then to put it to a full congressional vote
That account agrees with a Fox News report based on sources who were in the room and said the meeting took place May 16, 2017
The Washington Post, too, cited a source who said Rosenstein's comment was biting but unserious
In Trump's second rally in as many nights, he opened by telling the cheering crowd of thousands in Springfield that 'our country is respected again
' He says that's because 'we are finally putting America first.' Trump has been campaigning aggressively to help the Senate expand its narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate
He went to Vegas on Thursday night to help Sen.Dean Heller, the only Republican seeking re-election in a state that Democrat Hillary Clinton won in 2016
The reports about Rosenstein created even greater uncertainty for the deputy attorney general tenure at a time when Trump has lambasted Justice Department leadership and publicly humiliated both Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions
More broadly, it's the latest revelation that could affect Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible coordination between Russia and Trump's presidential campaign in 2016
Sessions recused himself from that issue soon after he took office, to Trump's dismay, and Rosenstein then appointed Mueller
With all that hanging in the air, Trump has resisted calls from conservative commentators to fire both Sessions and Rosenstein and appoint someone who would ride herd more closely on Mueller or dismiss him
A number of key FBI officials, including director James Comey and deputy director Andrew McCabe, have been fired since Trump took office
On Friday, Fox also reported that then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page were in the room when Rosenstein raised the subject
Page had been half of the infamous texting romantic-affair couple who mused in 2016 about how to 'stop' Trump from becoming president
An Obama-era Justice Department spokesman suggested Friday afternoon that McCabe leaked the story to the Times
'Dangerous game Andy McCabe is playing right now,' Matthew Miller tweeted.Ari Fleischer, who was White House press secretary during the George W
Bush administration, lashed out separately at McCabe.'This story reads like Andy McCabe trying to burn down the house he once lived in,' he tweeted
'Looks to me like McCabe is trying to get revenge on those he used to work with, after they challenged his honesty and fired him
' McCabe is himself facing a federal probe over allegations that he misled investigators about the sources of press leaks; Attorney General Jeff Sessions terminated his employment this year, just days before he was scheduled to retire with a full pension
In the Post's telling, McCabe had proposed opening an investigation into the president after the firing of FBI Director James Comey
'What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?' Rosenstein chided him, according to one source
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