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Rod Jay Rosenstein (; born January 13, 1965) is an American attorney who served as the 37th United States deputy attorney general from 2017 to 2019. Prior to his appointment, he served as a United States attorney for the District of Maryland. At the time of his confirmation as deputy attorney general in April 2017, he was the longest-serving U.S. attorney. Rosenstein had also been nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 2007, but his nomination was never considered by the U.S. Senate.
President Donald Trump nominated Rosenstein to serve as Deputy Attorney General on February 1, 2017. Rosenstein was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 25, 2017. In May 2017, at Trump's behest, he authored a memo that Trump then cited as the basis for his decision to dismiss FBI Director James Comey.
In May 2018, Rosenstein reportedly told the five U.S. Attorneys in districts along the border with Mexico, where refugees were concerned, that they should not "be categorically declining immigration prosecutions of adults in family units because of the age of a child." The directive, issued as part of the Trump administration family separation policy, led to the separation of thousands of small children from their parents, many of whom were seeking asylum in the United States after fleeing violence in Central America.
Following the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Comey's dismissal, Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate the myriad links between Trump associates and Russian officials and related matters. Rosenstein previously assumed authority over the parallel FBI probe after Sessions recused himself over misleading remarks he made to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary during his confirmation process. The New York Times reported Rosenstein prevented the FBI and Mueller from investigating Trump's personal and financial dealings in Russia. On November 7, 2018, Trump transferred this oversight to acting United States Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. Following the resignation of Jeff Sessions as United States Attorney General at the request of President Donald Trump, Rosenstein also served as acting United States Attorney General in his capacity as United States Deputy Attorney General for a few hours on November 7, 2018, pursuant to , until Trump signed an executive order naming Matthew Whitaker as acting United States Attorney General later that day.
Rosenstein submitted his resignation as deputy attorney general on April 29, 2019, which took effect on May 11, 2019. In 2020, he joined the law firm King & Spalding as a partner in its "Special Matters and Government Investigations" practice.
Rosenstein attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1986 with a Bachelor of Science, Latin honors, in economics and Phi Beta Kappa membership. He then attended Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduated in 1989 with a Juris Doctor, cum laude.
During the Clinton Administration, Rosenstein served as counsel to Deputy Attorney General Philip B. Heymann (1993–1994) and Special Assistant to Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General Jo Ann Harris (1994–1995). Rosenstein then worked in the United States Office of the Independent Counsel under Ken Starr on the Whitewater investigation into President Bill Clinton. As an Associate Independent Counsel from 1995 to 1997, he was co-counsel in the trial of three defendants who were convicted of fraud, and he supervised the investigation that found no basis for criminal prosecution of White House officials who had obtained FBI background reports.
United States Attorney Lynne A. Battaglia hired Rosenstein as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland in 1997.
From 2001 to 2005, Rosenstein served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division of the United States Department of Justice. He coordinated the tax enforcement activities of the Tax Division, the U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the IRS, and he supervised 90 attorneys and 30 support employees. He oversaw civil litigation and served as the acting head of the Tax Division when Assistant Attorney General Eileen J. O'Connor was unavailable, and he personally briefed and argued civil appeals in several federal appellate courts.
As United States Attorney, he oversaw federal civil and criminal litigation, assisted with federal law enforcement strategies in Maryland, and presented cases in the U.S. District Court and in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder directed Rosenstein to investigate leaks regarding the U.S.'s Stuxnet operation, which sabotaged Iran's nuclear program; as a result of the investigation, former U.S. Marine Corps General James Cartwright pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI and acknowledged leaking information about the operation to New York Times journalist David E. Sanger. During his tenure as U.S. Attorney, Rosenstein successfully prosecuted leaks of classified information, corruption, murders and burglaries, and was "particularly effective taking on corruption within police departments."Sales, Ben. (11 May 2017).
Rosenstein secured several convictions against prison guards in Baltimore for conspiring with the Black Guerrilla Family. He indicted Baltimore police officers Wayne Jenkins, Momodu Gondo, Evodio Hendrix, Daniel Hersl, Jemell Rayam, Marcus Taylor, and Maurice Ward for racketeering. Rosenstein, with the aid of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Drug Enforcement Administration, secured convictions in large scale narcotics cases in the District of Maryland, including the arrest and conviction of Terrell Plummer, Richard Christopher Byrd, and Yasmine Geen Young.
The Attorney General appointed Rosenstein to serve on the Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys, which evaluates and recommends policies for the Department of Justice. He was vice-chair of the Violent and Organized Crime Subcommittee and a member of the Subcommittees on White Collar Crime, Sentencing Issues and Cyber/Intellectual Property Crime. He also served on the Attorney General's Anti-Gang Coordination Committee.
Attorney General Eric Holder appointed Rosenstein to prosecute General James Cartwright, a former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for leaking to reporters. Cartwright pled guilty, but he was later pardoned.
Rosenstein served as the U.S. Attorney in Maryland during a period in which homicides decreased by approximately one-third, in other words, double the decline at the national level. Additionally, the robbery and aggravated assault rates fell faster than the national average. According to Thiru Vignarajah, the former deputy attorney general of Maryland, "Collaboration between prosecutors, police, and the community combined with a dogged focus on violent repeat offenders was the anchor of Rosenstein's approach." Rosenstein regarded the heroin and opioid epidemic as a public health crisis, hired a re-entry specialist to help ex-offenders adjust to life outside of prison, and prosecuted several individual cases of corrupt police officers.
Some critics argued that Rosenstein, in enabling the dismissal of Comey amid an investigation into Russian election interference, damaged his own reputation.
After administration officials cited Rosenstein's memo as the main reason for Comey's dismissal, an anonymous source in the White House said that Rosenstein threatened to resign. Rosenstein denied the claim and said he was "not quitting," when asked directly by a reporter from Sinclair Broadcast Group.
On May 17, Rosenstein told the Senate he knew that Comey would be fired before he wrote his memo that the White House initially used as justification for President Trump firing Comey.washingtonpost.com: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein knew before he wrote his controversial memo that Comey would be fired
The New York Times reported in August 2020 that concerns about a possible counterintelligence threat posed by Trump's personal and financial dealings with Russia increased after his May 9 firing of Comey, prompting the FBI to open an inquiry separate from the Crossfire Hurricane and the incipient Mueller investigation. Within days, Rosenstein curtailed that inquiry, giving the bureau the impression that Mueller would pursue it, though Rosenstein instructed Mueller not to, effectively ending the inquiry.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Rosenstein said he would recuse from supervision of Mueller, if he himself were to become a subject in the investigation due to his role in the dismissal of James Comey. Under that scenario, supervision would have fallen to DOJ's third-ranking official, Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand. Brand resigned on February 20, 2018, leaving the responsibility to Jesse Panuccio.
Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe stated in a February 2019 60 Minutes interview that during the days after Comey was fired, "the highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president," including the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to have Trump removed from office. Rosenstein again denied such discussions occurred.
Rosenstein went to the White House on September 24, where he met with Chief of Staff John Kelly; according to some reports, he offered his resignation. Following the meeting, the White House issued a statement that Rosenstein retained his position as deputy attorney general and would meet with Trump on September 27. Due to the ongoing hearings of Brett Kavanaugh, Rosenstein instead met with Trump on October 8. Further, Rosenstein agreed to meet with House Republicans within the next two weeks.
On March 22, 2019, Mueller released his report to Barr. On March 24, Barr sent a four-page letter to Congressional leaders "summarizing" the Mueller report, although he later said he had not intended the letter as a summary. In it, he said that Mueller had made no determination about whether Trump had committed obstruction of justice, and that Barr and Rosenstein had concluded that the evidence in the report was "not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense."
In an address at the Yale Club as he was preparing to leave the Justice Department following the release of the Mueller Report, Rosenstein criticized the Obama administration, the FBI, Congress, and the press for their conduct regarding Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Rosenstein asserted, "The previous administration chose not to publicize the full story about Russian computer hackers and social media trolls, and how they relate to a broader strategy to undermine America." He asserted that former FBI director James Comey had stated that Trump pressured him to end the investigation into the matter. Rosenstein went on to say, "In politics — as in journalism — the rules of evidence do not apply." He quoted President Trump advocating for the rule of law. He also criticized the FBI and Congress for leaks regarding the investigation.
In January 2021, the Inspector General for the Department of Justice concluded an investigation into the policy. The findings led Rosenstein to admit that family separations "should never have been implemented".
Rosenstein has served as an adjunct professor, teaching classes on federal criminal prosecution at the University of Maryland School of Law and trial advocacy at the University of Baltimore School of Law.
Rosenstein is a registered Republican.
He was a member of Washington D.C.'s Temple Sinai, a Reform Judaism congregation, from 2008 to 2014. According to a questionnaire that Rosenstein completed ahead of a hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was a member of a Jewish Community Center's sports league from 1993 to 2012. Rosenstein served on the board of directors of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum from 2001 to 2011.
Rosenstein was portrayed by actor Scoot McNairy in the Showtime TV miniseries The Comey Rule.
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