President Trump on Tuesday officially nominated Transportation official Jeffrey Rosen to serve as deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice upon Rod Rosenstein’s departure.
Rosen currently serves as deputy secretary of Transportation, and will require Senate confirmation for his new role. He previously served in the George W. Bush administration and practiced law at the Kirkland & Ellis law firm.
Trump’s choice of Rosen was first reported last month, but the president officially sent the nomination to the Senate on Tuesday.
{mosads}Rosenstein was previously expected to leave his role in mid-March, but a senior DOJ official told NBC News last week that he would remain on “a little longer.”
His exit could be imminent now that special counsel Robert Mueller has wrapped up his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Attorney General William Barr issued a four-page summary on Sunday of Mueller’s main findings, writing that the special counsel’s investigation did not find that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. On the matter of alleged obstruction of justice, Mueller said he had neither exonerated Trump nor concluded that he had committed a crime, according to Barr’s summary.
Rosenstein oversaw the special counsel’s investigation after former Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself, but turned over control of the probe to Barr upon his confirmation earlier this year.
Rosenstein came under scrutiny in recent months following a report that he’d been part of discussions about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.
The president seized on the allegations, detailed by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, to suggest the two men looked “like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught.”
The Justice Department issued a statement calling McCabe’s account of events “inaccurate and factually incorrect.”
McCabe also walked back his remarks, with a spokeswoman issuing a statement that he did not “participate in any extended discussions about the use of the 25th Amendment, nor is he aware of any such discussions.”