On Monday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein reportedly resigned. However, it later appeared that Rosenstein was actually remaining in his position and planned to fight any attempts to get him to resign. So, as time passed, the only thing that was clear was that... nothing was clear.
The story really began last week when Rosenstein met with White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly. Their meeting came after the New York Times reported that Rosenstein secretly suggested recording Trump. Furthermore, they said that Rosenstein discussed invoking the 25th amendment by enlisting Cabinet members to take the president down.
Despite Rosenstein calling the allegations "inaccurate and factually incorrect," it was believed that he was worried about Trump's reaction.
According to Axios' Monday report, Rod Rosenstein verbally "offered to resign" when speaking with Kelly.
BREAKING: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has verbally resigned to Chief of Staff John Kelly in anticipation… https://t.co/l7VSyFvZ4Q— Axios (@Axios) 1537799848.0
Contradictorily, Pete Williams reported that Rosenstein was on his way to the White House and was "expected to be fired".
BREAKING/ NBC News: Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein is en route to the White House and is "expected to be fired." He was… https://t.co/yFZJeKGz6z— Tom Winter (@Tom Winter) 1537800598.0
But Williams later said that the White House meeting could simply just be a diffusion of the situation.
Pete Williams is now suggesting that this meeting at the White House could be a clearing of the air and Rosenstein may keep his job.— Josh Dorner (@Josh Dorner) 1537803551.0
Finally, everyone received some clarification when Trump announced he would be meeting with Rosenstein on Thursday.
"I'm meeting with Rod Rosenstein on Thursday when I get back from all of these meetings. And we'll be meeting at the White House, and we'll be determining what's going on. We want to have transparency, we want to have openness and I look forward to meeting with Rod at that time."
Statement from @PressSec on Rosenstein. Looks like he is not being fired today https://t.co/Ck8dFrmqwF— John Roberts (@John Roberts) 1537807652.0
The entire back and forth of yesterday's reports had Twitter in chaos.
anyway, i've checked with my white house sources and https://t.co/MCl4QjuT8p— Dave Itzkoff (@Dave Itzkoff) 1537807948.0
Apparently Rosenstein told White House, "I will resign," but he meant it only sarcastically.....— Greg Mitchell (@Greg Mitchell) 1537808175.0
DC media from 11 am and 1 pm today: https://t.co/ehxix2mFU2— Jonathan Tamari (@Jonathan Tamari) 1537809037.0
rod rosenstein headlines be like https://t.co/0HF8ffNzK4— yoyoha (@yoyoha) 1537807692.0
BREAKING: Wait—Sorry, False Alarm https://t.co/jPNGPYAMGT https://t.co/zOtKNPAJjW— The Onion (@The Onion) 1537807482.0
So, Rob rosenstein has so far been fired, has resigned, has not be fired, has not resigned... is going to the wh to… https://t.co/ivwbysTaJg— Michelle (@Michelle) 1537804688.0
Season finale is Thursday.— Philip Bump (@Philip Bump) 1537808050.0
And some people can't help but wonder if the confusion and timing of the Rosenstein incident was planned perfectly to distract from the allegations against Kavanaugh.
I'm trying to decide if the Trump WH is bungling the handling of the Kavanaugh nomination to distract us from the R… https://t.co/w19AOLLbcM— Ronald Klain (@Ronald Klain) 1537802859.0
Gabe Sherman reports that the Rosenstein leak appears to have been a "smoke bomb" to knock Kavanaugh out of the new… https://t.co/Axc7hqYL2d— Natasha Bertrand (@Natasha Bertrand) 1537810315.0
Watch me walk and chew gum. Rod Rosenstein shouldn’t be fired. If he is, Trump should be removed from office immed… https://t.co/vLXgPMGjMA— Scott Dworkin (@Scott Dworkin) 1537802305.0
Keep your eyes and ears open, and make sure you're registered to vote for November's election.