President Donald Trump’s hardline community supporters on Reddit want Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein fired over new allegations that he discussed secretly recording Trump’s conversations and persuading senior officials to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office.
The claims, made in memos written by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and relayed to the New York Times by anonymous sources on Friday, concern comments supposedly made by Rosenstein in the wake of FBI Director James Comey’s firing in 2017.
Although Rosenstein issued a statement to deny the allegations, the story has provided the perfect pretext for redditors on the notorious pro-Trump subreddit r/The_Donald to push for his dismissal.
“There is more evidence that Rosenstein did this than there is evidence that Kavanaugh did anything wrong,” one user said, drawing comparisons with the Supreme Court nominee facing sexual assault allegations.
“There is more evidence that unicorns exist than there is evidence that coach K did anything wrong,” u/f_bastiat agreed.
“Fuck this seditious asshole!” u/Mamemoo wrote.
“Release the documents unredacted,” said u/Needbouttreefiddy. “Fire Rosenstein. CLEAN FUCKING HOUSE.”
While some called for actual military tribunals, others recommended “carpet bombing” and dropping nuclear warheads as the only way to clean out the “swamp.”
Rosenstein oversees special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into collusion and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Trump and his supporters have repeatedly slammed the investigation as a “witch hunt.”
The president has threatened to fire Rosenstein on several occasions, including after the FBI raided the office of his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen and in relation to allegations of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse.
Elsewhere on social media, other leading conservatives and right-wing pundits joined the chorus in demanding Rosenstein be fired.
https://twitter.com/CassandraRules/status/1043211170637930496
https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/status/1043209898341879808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Because source is NY Slimes not sure this is true but if so, Jeff Sessions needs to fire Rosenstein and if he won’t @realDonaldTrump needs to fire both of them since Rosenstein doesn’t seem to have the integrity to resign. https://t.co/zi57L8b0LX
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) September 21, 2018
Back on The Donald, more cautious users were pondering what the “deep state’s” long game was in releasing this information and painting a clean target on Rosenstein’s back.
“This is BAIT,” u/BernillaryClanders warned. “Don’t fall for it my pedes. NYT cannot be trusted.”
“I dislike the guy as much as anyone, but this is NYT propaganda at its finest right here,” another agreed. “I do not believe this garbage for a second.”