In an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt on Thursday, President Trump would not say whether he asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to provide him with a recommendation to fire former FBI Director James Comey.
In the aftermath of Trump’s decision to dismiss Comey on Tuesday, reports have asserted that the president asked Rosenstein to produce a memorandum later used by him and his staff to justify the firing.
Pressed to comment on that possibility by Holt, Trump did not answer.
Here’s the exchange:
LH: Monday you met with the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein—
DT: Right
LH: Did you ask for a recommendation? [OVER TALK]
DT: Uh what I did is I was going to fire I — my decision, it was not
LH: You had made the decision before they came in the room
DT: I — I was going to fire Comey. I — there’s no good time to do it by the way. They — they were — *OVERTALK*
LH: Because you letter you said I — I accepted their recommendation, so you had already made the decision
DT: Oh I was gonna fire regardless of recommendation—
LH: So there was — [OVER TALK]
DT: He made — he made a recommendation, he’s highly respected, very good guy, very smart guy, uh the Democrats like him, the Republicans like him, uh he made a recommendation but regardless of recommendation I was going to fire Comey.
Presumably, if the answer to Holt’s question was no, it would be an obvious decision for Trump to say so in order to refute accusations that he conspired with Rosenstein to produce the memo as a means to an already-determined end.
Still, if Trump went into his meeting with Rosenstein knowing that he was going to fire Comey for causing “turmoil” in the FBI, and then heard Rosenstein express his own independent concerns, it is in no way damning that Trump saw that as an opening to pull the trigger.
In fact, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Wednesday that Rosenstein came to Trump with concerns about Comey on Monday, after which the president asked him to put those concerns about Comey in writing, resulting in Tuesday’s memo and Trump’s subsequent decision. There is nothing wrong with that.
So why didn’t the president just say so?
If he was going to fire Comey “regardless” of Rosenstein’s recommendation, why did his notice of dismissal specifically, and exclusively, cite that memo and the attorney general’s reaction to it?
His decision to avoid directly answering Holt’s question is only going to encourage claims that Trump was determined to fire the FBI Director for “accelerating” an investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia and was seeking material justification, resulting in Rosenstein’s memo.
That he asked for a recommendation, in and of itself, is not objectionable. The question is whether he did so to create a justification for firing Comey that is not in line with his real motivation, which people are speculating was to hamper the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia.
That’s why the rapid chain of events looks suspicious.
I’m not arguing that’s what happened, but the president would better serve his own cause by offering a clearer timeline.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
