Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is expected to step down from his role in the Justice Department in the coming weeks.
A source confirmed to the Washington Examiner that Rosenstein always expected to serve for about two years and said he is likely to leave after attorney general nominee William Barr is confirmed by the Senate.
Barr’s confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee begin Tuesday, and once he’s confirmed, he will officially replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was forced to resign by the White House in November. Barr’s confirmation vote will likely not be before mid-February.
The source said that Rosenstein is not being pushed out and that he is timing his departure in order to make sure there is a smooth transition to the next deputy attorney general.
After Sessions’ departure, there was speculation that Rosenstein would depart soon after. Yet he remained in his post after Matthew Whitaker, the former chief of staff for Sessions, was named acting attorney general.
Rosenstein appointed special counsel Robert Mueller and has overseen his Russia investigation since May 2017. Rosenstein’s office still manages the probe’s day-to-day operations, but Whitaker oversees it.
Barr, if confirmed, will oversee the inquiry in its entirety.
Rosenstein was only able to appoint Mueller after Sessions’ recusal from the Russia investigation. It is not expected that Barr would recuse himself as attorney general from oversight, though he will get grilled on his views of a special counsel.
Rosenstein has been a frequent target of President Trump’s ire on Twitter. The president recently reposted an image of Rosenstein and high-ranking officials behind prison bars in November.
Rosenstein was never criticized as heavily as Sessions was by Trump, but he did draw criticism from the president for signing a surveillance warrant for former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Trump has also routinely called the Mueller investigation a “witch hunt” and a “hoax.”
Rosenstein has also drawn the criticism of Trump-allied Republican lawmakers, who have consistently accused the Justice Department of being biased at the top levels.
Last year, conservative lawmakers went as far as to draft articles of impeachment for Rosenstein for what some lawmakers called “slow walking” turning over documents requested, but the effort never came to fruition.
There was also renewed speculation that Rosenstein would resign or be forced out after reports emerged in September that he discussed wearing a “wire” to record conversations with Trump and that he was recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office.
But Rosenstein denied the report, and he and Trump patched up their relationship shortly in early October.
Nominated by Trump in 2017, Rosenstein previously served as U.S. attorney for the district of Maryland. For more than 15 years before that, he served in senior roles throughout the Justice Department.
