BAFFLING

Rod Rosenstein: ‘There’s No Place I’d Rather Be’

Deputy AG denies reports he threatened to quit.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has appeared to shrug off the furor surrounding his role in former FBI Director James Comey’s dismissal. Speaking at an awards dinner in Baltimore late Monday, Rosenstein said he wasn’t worried about the situation damaging his reputation. “When I took the oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, there is nothing in that oath about my reputation,” he was quoted as saying by CNN. His comments came amid calls for his recusal from an investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, as lawmakers have begun to publicly question Rosenstein’s judgment in light of Comey’s firing. President Trump cited a memo from Rosenstein as the basis for Comey’s abrupt dismissal, a claim that was later called into question by a Washington Post report that said Rosenstein nearly quit over the scandal. Rosenstein rejected those claims on Monday, however, saying he told a friend who suggested he should quit, “There’s no place I’d rather be.” “If you ask me, one of the main problems in Washington, D.C., is that everybody is so busy running around trying to protect their reputation instead of protecting the public, which is what they’re supposed to be doing,” Rosenstein said.