Rod Rosenstein sticks it to Donald Trump

| 7:34 pm EDT September 4, 2018
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The Senate confirmation process for Donald Trump’s illegitimate Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh immediately dissolved into a circus today, as the Republicans tried a last minute document dump stunt, and the Democrats responded by all but setting the room on fire. Even as one Democratic Senator after another began throwing figurative punches at Chuck Grassley’s con artistry, the person getting the most attention in the room was a guy who wasn’t even speaking: Rod Rosenstein.

Why was Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in attendance at today’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings? The official reason doesn’t matter. The reality is that by showing up and making a point of sitting in the very first row, he sent an unmistakable message: Donald Trump is under criminal investigation, he’s been named an unindicted co-conspirator, he’s on his way to prison, he’s going to ask the Supreme Court to spare him, and he has no business deciding who’s going to be on the Supreme Court when his judgment day comes.

If you think we may be overstating the importance of Rod Rosenstein’s presence there in the front row, consider that the reporters in the room couldn’t keep their cameras off him, and his name instantly began trending on Twitter. This was a big deal. What’s particularly notable is that even as the Trump-Russia investigation has resulted in one arrest and indictment after another, Rosenstein has repeatedly held press conferences where he tried to pretend the investigation wasn’t really about Trump, in order to convince Trump to continue sitting on his hands while the investigation continues to destroy Trump’s world.

So what is Rod Rosenstein up to this time? Official reasons for his presence aside, he could easily have sat in the back row. Instead he chose to send a message about Donald Trump’s criminality, and the illegitimacy of these hearings. Rosenstein and Robert Mueller have always been several steps ahead of Trump, so we’ll see how this one plays out.