The fate of the Trump-Russia probe may depend on one man. And it’s not Mueller.

Meet Rod Rosenstein.

By Alex Ward@AlexWardVoxalex.ward@vox.com  Dec 21, 2017, 2:10pm EST

Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images; Zach Gibson/Getty Images; Andrew Burton/Getty Images
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has suddenly found himself in the middle of Washington's biggest political firestorm, and there are growing signs that he may not be able to avoid being consumed by it.

Rosenstein is the man responsible for overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. That’s because Attorney General Jeff Sessions — Rosenstein’s boss — recused himself from the probe after it became clear he’d provided false and misleading testimony to Congress about his own contacts with Russia.

That leaves Rosenstein walking a tightrope. On one hand, he seems committed to protecting the investigation from conservatives inside and outside Congress who believe it’s biased against the president and have been urging Trump to fire the special counsel.

But at the same time, Rosenstein can’t go so far in defending the probe that President Trump — who has called the investigation a “witch hunt” — fires him, as that would pave the way for Trump to potentially replace him with someone more willing to fire Mueller or otherwise thwart the investigation.

This is important, because Mueller has to run major investigative decisions past the deputy attorney general. A Rosenstein replacement could simply refuse to approve any of Mueller’s requests, effectively slowing the whole investigation to a crawl, or even fire Mueller outright if he felt there was a reason to do so. Rosenstein, however, has made it clear that at this point, he sees no reason to fire Mueller.

This seems to have irked Trump. He recently told some of his advisers that he thinks Rosenstein is “a Democrat” (even though he is actually a lifelong Republican) — possibly suggesting that he is thinking about firing the deputy attorney general.

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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/21/16795506/rosenstein-trump-mueller-russia-comey-sessions