Trump, Deputy AG to meet on Thursday

US President Donald Trump and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will meet on Thursday, amid reports that the latter could resign or be fired, the White House announced.

"At the request of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he and President Trump had an extended conversation to discuss the recent news stories," Efe news quoted White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders as saying on Monday.

Sanders added that "because the President is at the UN General Assembly (in New York) and has a full schedule with leaders from around the world, they will meet on Thursday when the President returns to Washington, DC".

Sanders denied the reports earlier on Monday saying that Rosenstein had already resigned verbally in a conversation with Chief of Staff John Kelly so as not to be pre-emptively fired.

Rosenstein is the official in charge of overseeing the investigation headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into alleged connections between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.

Last week, The New York Times reported that Rosenstein in 2017 suggested secretly taping Trump in the White House and then - on the basis of that potential tape - convincing members of the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the President from office, a story that the Deputy Attorney General categorically denied in a statement, calling the reporting "inaccurate" and "factually incorrect".

If Rosenstein were to step down or be ousted, it is highly likely that Solicitor General Noel Francisco, who is the highest-ranking Senate-confirmed Department of Justice official below Rosenstein, would assume control of the Mueller investigation.

--IANS

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