This is the long and the short of it: Rosenstein not only wrote the memo giving the reasons for the termination of FBI director Comey, but actively sought the opportunity to do so. The memo is dated May 9, 2017, the day after Comey's firing.

Watch and learn. You will see Rod Rosenstein become President Trump's best friend. He may not survive the friendship, but he really doesn't have any other choice but to do as he is told after what is said he did in the closing days of James Comey's reign as FBI director and the Mueller appointment as special counsel. As is usually the case, Andrew C. McCarthy explains Rosenstein's underhanded "weasel" machinations the best.

He wanted to write the memo because, at the time, the Democrats were saying Comey cost Clinton the presidency by reopening the investigation into her "private server/email" just before the election of 2016.

Rosenstein believed that in writing the memo, he would be hailed by Democrats as a hero. In the memo, he leans heavily on Comey's actions "usurp[ing] the Attorney General's authority." He makes a good case for firing Comey based on what he did to Clinton, a private citizen and candidate for elected office, who at the time was (and still is) not charged with a crime.

When all hell broke loose, Rosenstein was surprised. He thought he was doing the left's bidding. Only by then, the Democrats had switched tracks and accused him, by writing the memo, of giving justification to Trump's efforts to collude, obstruct, or whatever they imagined the president was doing.

Comey had become their hero.

From Andrew C. McCarthy:

It had apparently escaped Rosenstein's notice that Democrats had moved on from Hillary. Stoking anti-Trump derangement was now the order of the day, and Comey had made himself useful in that effort, particularly during March House testimony in which Comey publicly fingered the president's campaign as a suspect in Russian sabotage."

And to Rosenstein's surprise, he had become the bad guy.

According to McCarthy:

The apoplectic Democratic reaction sent Rod a-reeling, anguished by such taunts as this one by Senator Christopher Murphy of Connecticut: 'You wrote a memo you knew would be used to perpetuate a lie. You own this debacle.' Pathos drips from the Friday Times report: Rosenstein grousing that Trump had used him; Rosenstein remorsefully wishing that Comey (whom he'd just portrayed as mutinous and incorrigible) was still running the FBI so the admiring Rod 'could bounce ideas off him.'

What's a weasel to do?

Rosenstein apparently fell apart (weasels will do that). He started raising all kinds of possibilities. He claimed he had spoken to Trump Cabinet heads to suggest the use of the 25th Amendment to depose the president because he is mentally unfit.

The New York Times broke this story on Friday, September 21.

[H]e did tell [Acting FBI Director] Mr. McCabe that he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John F. Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security and now the White House chief of staff, to mount an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment.

He reportedly also suggested on May 16, 2017 that DoJ officials who meet with the president, as well as applicants for Comey's job as director of the FBI, wear "a wire" to record the president for use against him in either 25th Amendment proceedings or impeachment.

Robert Mueller interviewed with the president for the job the day before he was named by Rosenstein as special counsel on May 17, 2018. You do the math. Did Mueller wear a wire?

Rosenstein has issued a Clintonesque denial, calling the allegations in the article "factually incorrect." There have been other claims that when he said what he said, he was being sarcastic or joking.

Rosenstein also declared:

I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Boy, doesn't he sound nervous? I particularly like the part about it all being a joke. It reminds me of this guy. And look what happened to him.

In any case, Rosenstein speaks to the president on Thursday. Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

What are Rosenstein's options?

Deny, deny, deny. This will only get him fired, and after having shown a level of competence – so staggering in its ineptness, it wouldn't be expected from, say...a lone high school girl at a party of four, where there will be drinking and pot – it would be hard to believe that the leftist media would have any use for him as an on-air expert. Resign and hope for the book deal and GoFundMe account. Trump might accept his resignation with the thought that he could name someone who would rein in Mueller and his gang of leftist assassins. Yet this should hold no attraction for the president, because he will be said to be spiking the "Mueller Investigation," something that would be politically unwise for him in the run-up to the midterms. In addition, it's hard to get that GoFundMe account revved up for someone who sounds like such a moron. And who would want to read his book? What would the title be? "I Was for Sale to the Highest Bidder"? And, let's face it: even a Democratic administration would be hard pressed to politically appoint this guy even after he took one for the team. Listen quietly while Trump tells him what he is going to do. This would be a stroke of genius for Trump, allowing Rosenstein to keep his job, at least until after the November elections. He could be Trump's hatchet man. He could be the guy Sessions refuses to be. Finally, the president would have an actively assertive attorney general (if only an "Acting" A.G.). Who better to kill off Mueller's witch-hunt, or at least rein it in, than the man who hired him and gave him a free hand to search for any crime by anyone...ever?

The way I see it, Rosenstein doesn't have a choice.

Please find me on Twitter @williamlgensert.