I mean, you should obviously head over there (lawfareblog.com/...) and read the whole thing but here are some highlights.
Trump happily traded the reputation of Rosenstein, who began the week as a well-respected career prosecutor, for barely 24 hours of laughably transparent talking points in the news cycle.
Yup.
Note that Trump did not merely reveal Rosenstein as a set piece here; he revealed him as a set piece in Trump's own effort to frustrate the Russia investigation.
Indeed.
... Trump had used his deputy attorney general as window dressing on a pre-cooked political decision to shut down an investigation involving himself, a decision for which he needed the patina of a high-minded rationale.
Once the President has said this about you—a law enforcement officer who works for him and who promised the Senate in confirmation hearings you would show independence—you have nothing left.
Not a damn thing, Rod.
The only decent course now is to name a special prosecutor and then resign.
R-E-S-I-G-N.
I was profoundly wrong about Rosenstein.
Rosenstein's memo in support of Comey’s firing is a shocking document. .... The memo is a press release to justify an unsavory use of presidential power. It is also a profoundly unfair document. And it's gutless too. Because at the end of the day, the memo greases the wheels for Comey's removal without ever explicitly urging it—thus allowing its author to claim that he did something less than recommend the firing, while in fact providing the fig leaf for it. .... Rosenstein was tasked to provide a pretext, and he did just that.
Gutless, Rod! GUTLESS!
Rosenstein’s memo wasn’t honorable, and it debases the office of the deputy attorney general for the occupant of that office to issue such a memo.
No honor. He has no honor left. He’s honorless. But Benjamin is not done.
Second, Rosenstein’s memo wasn’t decent. If you’re going to recommend that someone be fired, you should have the decency to pick up the phone and give him a chance to address the substantive matters that form the basis of your recommendation. ...
(So you don’t think I’m being hypocritical here, I emailed Rosenstein before publishing this article, offering to share to the draft with him and to discuss the matters at issue.)
Damn, Mr. Wittes.
The memo was also cowardly. Rosenstein doesn't even take responsibility for the recommendation he was plainly making.
Cowardly.
In the end, Trump was able to make set piece out of Rosenstein, because Rosenstein let himself be used as a set piece. .... It took Donald Trump only two weeks to put Rosenstein, a figure of sterling reputation, in the position of choosing between continued service and behaving honorably—and it took only two days after that for the President to announce that Rosenstein’s memo, after all, was nothing more than a Potemkin village designed as a facade on Trump’s predecided outcome.
Rod, you got played.
Benjamin ends with a warning. Not to Rosenstein no. It’s already too late for Rod. But a warning to the men and women at the Department of Justice.
Do you really want this to be you? Do you really think Trump will not leave your reputation as so much roadkill on the highway after enlisting you in sliming someone else a week or two after you take office?
The lesson here is that these are not honorable people, and they will do their best to drag you down to their level. They will often succeed.
I say, Rosenstein resigns in less than a week. What does everyone else think?
The whole article is worth reading and can be found here: lawfareblog.com/...