Washington, DC.- Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, today announced his resignation, which will be effective as of May 11, in a letter addressed to President Donald Trump, whose content was published by local media.
In his letter, Rosenstein thanked Trump for giving him “the opportunity to serve”: “For the courtesy and humor that you often show in our personal conversations, and for the goals you established in your investiture speech: patriotism, unity, security, education and prosperity (…) “.
Rosenstein’s departure had been waiting for months: the official had made it clear that he would leave the Justice Department as soon as the investigation into the Russian plot of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller concluded, something that happened more than a month ago.
Trump nominated in March a new Deputy Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen, who is currently the Undersecretary of Transportation and who has yet to be confirmed by the Senate to take office.
Rosenstein oversaw the independent investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections for a year and a half: from the May 2017 dismissal of FBI Director James Comey to Jeff Sessions as Attorney General last November.
It was a delicate task for Rosenstein, since Trump complained frequently, in public and in private, that Sessions had decided to depart from any decision-making related to the investigation of the Russian plot and had left the subject in the hands of his “number”. two”.
In his letter of resignation, Rosenstein recalled that “the average mandate of a deputy prosecutor general is 16 months, and few remain in office for more than two years,” as he has done.
The official made a defense of the independence that the Department of Justice has had historically regarding political interests, an attribution that Trump has attacked frequently, to ensure that that agency “has a special responsibility to avoid partisanship.”
“We apply the law without fears or favors because the credible evidence is not partisan, and the truth is not determined by opinion polls,” Rosenstein said.
“We ignore ephemeral distractions and focus our attention on what matters, because the information cycle is not what governs a durable republic,” he added.
Since February, the Department of Justice is in the hands of William Barr, a prosecutor general who has been criticized for his alleged favorable position to Trump.
Mueller concluded in his report, whose edited version was published this month, that Trump “was involved in efforts to stifle the investigation” on the Russian plot, but left it up to Barr to decide whether the president obstructed justice, and the prosecutor General concluded that there was “insufficient evidence” in this regard. (EFEUSA)
