UNDER DURESS?

Rosenstein Didn’t Want to Write Memo Justifying Comey’s Firing, Says McCabe

Deputy attorney general was reportedly upset by Trump's command.

Rod Rosenstein privately complained that Donald Trump commanded him to write the notorious memo backing the firing of FBI Director James Comey, according to Comey’s former deputy Andrew McCabe. McCabe’s new book, The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump, also accuses Trump of acting like a criminal mob boss and of ushering in a “strain of insanity” in American politics. On Comey, McCabe says that Rosenstein was visibly upset during a private Justice Department meeting on May 12, 2017, after being ordered to write the memo. “He said it wasn’t his idea. The president had ordered him to write the memo justifying the firing,” McCabe writes. Rosenstein went on to say that he was having trouble sleeping and is quoted as saying: “There’s no one here that I can trust.” Publicly, Rosenstein has voiced no regrets over the memo, saying in his testimony to Congress: “I wrote it. I believe it. I stand by it.” The memo was cited by Trump as a reason to fire Comey.