After the hullabaloo on Monday over the fate of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (Will he resign? Will he be fired? He HAS been fired? He hasn’t??), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, appeared on MSNBC to beg Rosenstein to stay on the job.
“Rod Rosenstein should, under no circumstances, resign,” said Schiff. “If the president intends to obstruct justice, Rosenstein should require him to be fired. He shouldn’t take a step affirmatively and essentially let the president off the hook. This looks to me like a slow-moving Saturday Night Massacre. It seems like the only question is whether these steps take place now or they take place after the midterms when the president believes he’ll pay less of a political price for it.”
And here, not for the first time, we have to strongly disagree with Mr. Schiff. It’s beyond time for Rod Rosenstein to hand in his resignation.
Rosenstein has been held up by Republicans and Democrats alike as some kind of bastion of integrity. Well, now is the time to prove it. Don’t force President Trump’s hand. You know he has no choice but to relieve you of your duties. Multiple people in the administration have come forward to tell reporters that you talked about secretly recording the president. They’ve said you wanted to start a 25th Amendment coup against him. Yes, you insist you were joking, but that’s not something you joke about when you’re the second-most powerful man in law enforcement. You’ve either been caught in a conspiracy or you’ve been caught exercising some extremely poor judgement. Either way, you’ve got to go.
Unfortunately, we know that you are no man of integrity. The story in The New York Times last week only put the finishing touches on a character portrait that was already more than a year in the making. Your constant efforts to thwart legitimate transparency and your outright threats of retribution against House Republicans have shown you to be a tool of the Democratic establishment. Maybe you’re a secret liberal, maybe you’re a NeverTrump conservative, or maybe you’re just protecting your bros in the Justice Department. It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day, because it all comes to the same end result: You’re undermining the President of the United States for your own selfish interests.
Do yourself and your country a favor and turn in your resignation.
Do it before Trump has to make the decision on your behalf.
