Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Navigates Difficult Currents; L.A. County Sheriff's Office Responding to Reports of Shots at a High School
HARLOW: Right now, the man at the center of the Russia investigation Rod Rosenstein is delivering the commencement address at Campbell Law School in Raleigh, North Carolina.</s>BERMAN: And Rosenstein is facing constant pressure from not just the White House but lawmakers on Capitol Hill. But as our chief political analyst Gloria Borger reports, Rosenstein seems to be unruffled by this whole situation.</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): If the president is your boss, this is not what you want to hear when he's asked if he'll fire you.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You figure that one out.</s>BORGER: Trump was dissing his own deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, for whom every day can be a near-death experience. As a frustrated president lashes out at the Russia investigation.</s>TRUMP: The entire thing has been a witch hunt and there is no collusion.</s>BORGER: Rosenstein became the man in charge once the attorney general recused himself. So he's the one who hired the special counsel, which leaves him as the man in the middle, between Trump and any move to fire Robert Mueller. A precarious place. Oddly enough, Rosenstein started out as a teacher's pet.</s>TRUMP: He's highly respected, very good guy, very smart guy, the Democrats like him, the Republicans like him.</s>SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This guy is a man of upstanding character and essentially the gold standard at the Department of Justice.</s>BORGER: Rosenstein's stock rose even higher when after just two weeks on the job he wrote a now infamous memo at the request of the president, lambasting FBI director James Comey for mishandling the Clinton e-mail investigation.</s>ANDY WHITE, ROSENSTEIN'S FRIEND AND FORMER COLLEAGUE: If the president asks you to look at this and give me your thoughts, you can't say no.</s>BORGER (on camera): So he writes the memo.</s>WHITE: Writes the memo.</s>BORGER: And then --</s>WHITE: All hell breaks loose.</s>BORGER (voice-over): The president loved it, almost as much as he hated Comey. So much in fact that he received it, released it, and fired Comey all on the same day last May.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We have major breaking news.</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The president of the United States has terminated the director of the FBI, James Comey.</s>BORGER: Josh Campbell, a close Comey aide, was with him in Los Angeles when Comey learned watching CNN that he had been fired.</s>JOSH CAMPBELL, FORMER SENIOR ASSISTANT TO JAMES COMEY: They said we have a letter from the president that was dropped off at the visitors center at FBI headquarters.</s>BORGER (on camera): Visitors center?</s>CAMPBELL: At the visitors center indicating you've been fired. They said there's something else, there is something attached to this letter. There's a lengthy explanation from the deputy attorney general laying out a case against you.</s>BORGER: Was he surprised at Rosenstein?</s>CAMPBELL: He was very surprised of Rosenstein. And again not that they were chummy or friends or you would know what to expect.</s>BORGER: Right.</s>CAMPBELL: Because none of this was telegraphed.</s>BORGER: Do you think he knew that it was going to be used by the president as the rational, publicly, for firing James Comey?</s>WHITE: Well, I think he had to know it was going to be used in some degree. I don't think that he realized that the president was going to put Greyhound bus tracks on his back with that memo. I don't think that he realized it was going to be used in that way.</s>ROD ROSENSTEIN, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: My memo truthfully reflects my views. I'm not in a position to comment on anybody else. So for my perspective, Senator, that memo is about what it is about. I do not know what was in anybody else's mind.</s>BORGER (voice-over): In Comey world, Rosenstein is seen as a Trump collaborator, not an independent actor. (</s>On camera): So what's the motive?</s>CAMPBELL: I think the motive is to keep his job.</s>BORGER: What is Rosenstein's rep now?</s>CAMPBELL: There is conflict there. He's someone that people are suspicious of, but in these interesting times, people are looking at him and thinking he might be the last best hope that we have to ensure that Bob Mueller is allowed to do his job, which is a strange place to be in.</s>BORGER (voice-over): Rosenstein is 53, married, with two teenage daughters.</s>WHITE: He's a dad. You know, his world has changed a lot because of this.</s>ROSENSTEIN: My younger daughter was 14 at the time when she heard I was going to become deputy. She asked me a very important question, she said, Dad, does this mean you'll get your picture in the paper?</s>ROSENSTEIN: And I said, no.</s>BORGER: But he keeps his own counsel even with his friends.</s>WHITE: With Rod, you scratch the surface and you get more surface. But that's him. He is -- he's inscrutable publicly. Professionally he is devastatingly effective. He's methodical. He's thorough.</s>BORGER: A career justice department official with a Harvard Law pedigree, a former U.S. attorney from Maryland for a dozen years, a Republican appointed by George W. Bush.</s>JAMES TRUSTY, ROSENSTEIN'S FRIEND AND FORMER COLLEAGUE: He's been presiding over a small district that was bringing every case you can imagine from material support of terrorism to public corruption to MS- 13 to corrupt jails where almost all the guards get indicted. I mean, he's been aggressive and he has not shied away from the political spotlight when it comes to prosecutorial decisions.</s>BORGER: He was confirmed for his current job last April 94-6, but the shine wore off quickly after the Mueller appointment. And then Rosenstein further enraged Trump by not stopping the Michael Cohen raid.</s>TRUMP: So I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, good man, and it's a disgraceful situation.</s>BORGER: And an increasingly tenuous one for Rosenstein.</s>SALLY YATES, FORMER DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: No one is above the law, even the president.</s>BORGER: Obama appointee Sally Yates is a former deputy attorney general, fired by Trump last year.</s>YATES: The president can't fire a prosecutor because he's mad that he authorized a search warrant of his lawyer's home and office.</s>BORGER (on camera): Right. He can be mad about it.</s>YATES: Sure. He can be mad about it, as long as he's not trying to influence his conduct.</s>BORGER (voice-over): At a recent meeting with the president, Rosenstein himself volunteered that the Cohen raid did not put Trump in any legal jeopardy. But the president remained furious.</s>TRUMP: I'm very disappointed in my Justice Department. But because of the fact that it is going on, and I think you'll understand this, I have decided that I won't be involved. I may change my mind at some point because what's going on is a disgrace.</s>RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S LAWYER: I believe that Attorney General Sessions, my good friend, and Rosenstein, who I don't know, I believe they should in the interest of justice end this investigation.</s>WHITE: If he asks Rod to fire Mr. Mueller, Rod would resign. That's my guess. Because at that point, it's untenable. You have a president who is not respecting the process, not respecting the Constitution, he won't do it.</s>BORGER (on camera): He won't?</s>WHITE: No.</s>YATES: It would be a red line for the president to fire Bob Mueller. But it should equally be crossing a red line if he were to fire Rod Rosenstein as well.</s>BORGER: And what red line is that?</s>YATES: Well, it's a red line in terms of totally turning the rule of law on its head.</s>BORGER (voice-over): Some Republicans would see it as a step in the right direction, calling Rosenstein conflicted because he wrote the Comey memo. They also fume he won't provide his unredacted internal memo detailing the scope of the Mueller investigation. The president himself again threatening. "At some point, I will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the presidency and get involved."</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you afraid of President Trump firing you?</s>ROSENSTEIN: No, I'm not, Congressman.</s>TRUSTY: Rod is -- he's like shockingly fatalistic.</s>ROSENSTEIN: There are people who have been making threats, privately and publicly, against me, for quite some time, and I think they should understand by now the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted.</s>WHITE: He is a career public servant. He's a career prosecutor. Whatever Mr. Trump wants to say frankly can only make his reputation go up.</s>BORGER (on camera): Even if he gets fired?</s>WHITE: Especially if he gets fired.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.</s>HARLOW: We do have breaking news, according to the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, there are reports of shots fired at a high school in California, just about an hour and a half north of Los Angeles. Reports that this is taking place at Highland High School. Let's get straight to our Alex Marquardt who is following this. What can you tell us, Alex?</s>ALEXANDER MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John and Poppy. Well, details are still coming in, but what we do know is that the L.A. county sheriff is responding to reports of a man with a gun. So far they're just reports, they have not confirmed so far that shots have been fired. We know that the sheriff's deputies are responding as well as the Palm Dale Fire Department. Responding to Palm Dale High School. Now Palm Dale as you mentioned is just north of Los Angeles, around 50 miles, about an hour and a half drive. The first call came in at 7:05 a.m. local time. So that would be the beginning of the school day as students are going into the high school. Of course, this is the end of the school year, and I was just looking on the Web site of this school, they got final exams coming up in just a couple of weeks. Now it has not been confirmed that there has been a shooting, but what we do know is the L.A. County Sheriff's Department is responding to reports of a man with a gun. That's what we know so far -- John and Poppy.</s>BERMAN: Alex Marquardt, thanks very much. This high school has about 3,000 students, the city about 150,000 people there.</s>HARLOW: Right.</s>BERMAN: We'll keep our eye on this. We'll update you on any new details right after the break.