President Donald Trump said Monday that he has no plans to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, whose future at the Justice Department has been in question in recent weeks.
Trump said the two had a "good talk" while traveling together on Air Force One to an event in Florida.
"The press wants to know: What did you talk about?" Trump said at the outset of a speech at the International Association of Chiefs of Police annual convention in Orlando, as he thanked Rosenstein for being there. "We had a good talk."
Trump and Rosenstein were scheduled to meet late last month after reports that Rosenstein had discussed the possibility, in early 2017, of secretly recording Trump to expose chaos in the White House and of invoking constitutional provisions to have him removed from office. But Trump postponed the meeting amid the confirmation process for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
As he left the White House on Monday en route to Florida, Trump told reporters that he has a "very good relationship" with Rosenstein. Asked by a reporter whether he plans to fire him, Trump said, "No, I don't."
"I didn't know Rod before," Trump said. "I've gotten to know him, and I get along very well with him."
They did talk for about 45 minutes, but not alone, a White House spokesman said. The subjects included violent crime in Chicago, border security, support for local law enforcement agencies, the conference they were flying to and "general DOJ business," spokesman Hogan Gidley said without elaboration.
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was present for Monday's conversation between Rosenstein and Trump, the White House said, as was Rosenstein's top deputy at the Justice Department, Ed O'Callaghan.
Trump later told a reporter that the conversation was "great," without elaborating.
"I'm not making any changes," Trump told reporters as he returned to the White House after the Florida trip. "We just had a very nice talk. We actually get along."
RUSSIA INQUIRY
The Justice Department has denied that Rosenstein proposed invoking the 25th Amendment of the Constitution, which would involve the Cabinet and vice president agreeing to remove Trump. And the remark about secretly recording the president was meant sarcastically, the department said.
Even so, Rosenstein told White House officials that he was willing to resign, and he arrived at the White House for a meeting last month with the expectation that he would be fired. He met in person with Kelly and spoke by phone with Trump during a tumultuous day that ended with him still in his job.
Rosenstein is the top Justice Department official overseeing Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is investigating whether the Trump campaign worked with Russia to sway the 2016 election.
That position has made Rosenstein the protector of the Mueller investigation, and sometimes the target of Trump's attacks on what he calls a politically motivated witch hunt.
The Justice Department had begun preparing for a future without him: Matt Whitaker, Attorney General Jeff Sessions' chief of staff, would take over as deputy attorney general, and Noel Francisco, the solicitor general, would take over supervision of the Russia investigation.
At a news conference two days after Rosenstein's meeting with Kelly, Trump declared: "My preference would be to keep him and to let him finish up."
The speculation over Rosenstein's future concerned Democrats, who feared that a dismissal could lead to Trump curtailing Mueller's investigation. Although Trump has at times criticized his deputy attorney general, he has reserved his sharpest verbal attacks for Sessions, who recused himself from the Russia investigation in March 2017 because of his own earlier involvement with the Trump campaign.
Administration officials have told The Washington Post that Trump is unlikely to fire Rosenstein before the midterm elections in November, but officials increasingly expect both he and Sessions to leave the department after the election.
On Capitol Hill, Trump's closest allies still have Rosenstein in their cross hairs. He is scheduled to be questioned later this week behind closed doors by the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees, as part of an investigation into the FBI and Justice Department's conduct during investigations of Trump associates' suspected links to Russia and of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.
The joint panel has already spoken with Rosenstein once, in a fiery public hearing during which Rosenstein defended the Justice Department against Republicans' accusations that political bias had infected its investigation. Conservative lawmakers have called for Rosenstein to step down and for Mueller's investigation to be shut down.
Rosenstein's public face-off with lawmakers came shortly after the department's inspector general released a report criticizing former FBI Director James Comey and finding that other FBI employees showed a "willingness to take official action" to hurt Trump's election chances in 2016.
'STOP AND FRISK'
In his speech to thousands of law enforcement officers, Trump urged that police in Chicago implement the policy of "stop and frisk" to curb the gun violence that is plaguing the nation's third-largest city.
Trump also crowed about the confirmation of Kavanaugh and said the sexual-assault allegations against him had been orchestrated by "evil" people.
Trump said he had directed Sessions' office to immediately visit Chicago to help the city address its wave of deadly shootings.
"We're going to straighten it out, and we're going to straighten it out fast," Trump said. He added later: "Let's see whether or not Chicago accepts help. They need it."
The president suggested that Chicago implement the stop-and-frisk tactic, in which police officers stop, question and frisk people they suspect may be dangerous or may have committed a crime.
"It works, and it was meant for problems like Chicago: stop and frisk," he said.
Trump argued that the policy helped reduce violent crime in New York City in the 1990s and early 2000s, when Rudy Giuliani was mayor. Giuliani is now Trump's personal attorney in the Russia investigation.
But the concept of "stop, question and frisk" as a means of proactive policing has come under criticism in recent years because statistics show it was imposed disproportionately on racial minorities.
The New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk policy was criticized as racial profiling, and in 2013, a federal judge ruled that it was discriminatory and unconstitutional. After New York City stopped the policy in 2014, the city's murder and overall crime rate continued to drop.
Chicago police deferred to the office of Mayor Rahm Emanuel to respond to Trump's comments.
"Even someone as clueless as Donald Trump has to know stop-and-frisk is simply not the solution to crime," mayoral spokesman Matt McGrath said in an emailed statement. "Just last week CPD reported there have been 100 fewer murders and 500 fewer shooting victims in Chicago this year, the second straight year of declines -- all while we've been making reforms to restore trust with residents. The fact that he's trotting out this tired rhetoric is another sign he's worried about Republicans in the midterms."
Hours ahead of Kavanaugh's ceremonial swearing-in at the White House, Trump used his speech in Orlando to celebrate Kavanaugh's confirmation. Scores of police officers, some of them in uniform, burst into hearty applause.
Trump called Kavanaugh "an extremely qualified nominee who will be a faithful defender of the rule of law and will defend the United States Constitution." Referencing the sexual-misconduct allegations, Trump said Kavanaugh was the victim of "a disgraceful situation brought about by people who were evil."
Information for this article was contributed by Devlin Barrett, John Wagner and Philip Rucker of The Washington Post; by Eric Tucker, Jonathan Lemire and Jill Colvin of The Associated Press; and by Katie Benner of The New York Times.
A Section on 10/09/2018