Rod Rosenstein considered appointing special counsel even before Comey firing

Former acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told FBI investigators with Robert Mueller’s office that he’d considered appointing a special counsel prior to President Trump’s May 2017 firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Rosenstein made this admission during a May 23, 2017, interview just one week after his May 17, 2017, appointment of Mueller in the wake of Comey being terminated by the president on May 9, 2017. The deputy attorney general, who oversaw the Justice Department’s Trump-Russia investigation following Attorney General Jeff Sessions recusing himself, contacted Mueller the next morning, on May 10, 2017, telling investigators, “of course” he’d considered the issue of appointing a special counsel even before then.