Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has not been fired, and has not tendered his resignation, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement posted to Twitter Monday afternoon.
Rosenstein’s meeting at the White House Monday morning was designed to help clear the air over a New York Times report alleging that Rosenstein suggested his employees tape conversations they have with President Donald Trump and that Rosenstein encouraged associates to petition Cabinet members to consider removing Trump from office.
Sanders cleared up the confusion on social media.
Statement on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein: pic.twitter.com/yBgAydv9oR
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) September 24, 2018
Earlier reports suggested that Rosenstein was on his way to the White House Monday morning to submit a “verbal resignation” to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. Instead, it seems Rosenstein was not in imminent danger of being fired, and his meeting with Kelly included a phone call with Trump so that Rosenstein could give his response to The New York Times’s story.
Rosenstein denies the Times’s allegations, calling the report false, and accusing the Times of relying on anonymous sources with no connection to Rosenstein’s office. In an NBC News report Monday, a source close to Rosenstein said the deputy AG’s suggestion that employees “wear a wire” around Trump was “sarcastic.”
ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl says Rosenstein is back at work, and attended a Cabinet-level meeting after his discussion with Kelly.
This may be the strangest day yet at the Trump White House. Rod Rosenstein was summoned to the WH to meet with John Kelly this morning. He expected to be fired. He wasn’t. And now Rosenstein is attending a previously scheduled cabinet-level meeting (filling in for Sessions)
— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) September 24, 2018
Further conversations between Trump and Rosenstein are, apparently, scheduled for Thursday.