Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein was fired today at the White House, according to reports, though others write that he resigned.
Axios reported that Rosenstein was planning to resign in anticipation of being fired. CNN, Bloomberg and The Washington Post quickly confirmed this report.
NBC reported that Rosenstein was refusing to resign by his own volition, saying President Trump had to fire him.
Rosenstein's departure follows a story in The New York Times reporting that he suggested secretly recording the President and discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.
Rosenstein supervised Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian efforts to influence Donald Trump's election campaign, to the president's constant annoyance. Aides reportedly tried to prevent Trump firing him in the immediate aftermath of the Times' report, lest it unleash yet more political chaos in the run up to November's mid-term congressional elections.
What happens next? FiveThirtyEight speculates:
Read the restThere are several ways this could play out. One is that Trump might pressure Rosenstein's replacement to curtail the Russia investigation. (Solicitor General Noel Francisco is next in line at the Justice Department.) Trump could tell Francisco, for example, to stop Mueller from pursuing any avenue of inquiry that involves Trump's financial records or other sensitive topics, or he could order him to fire Mueller and either allow the investigation to continue with a replacement (or without a special counsel at all) or shut it down entirely.
If that's not something Francisco is willing to do, Trump could try another tack: appointing an acting deputy attorney general who would fill the vacancy created by Rosenstein's removal.
