WASHINGTON – Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's job is in jeopardy after The New York Times reported he had talked last year of wearing a wire and possibly invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Donald Trump from office.

Tensions have cooled a bit as Rosenstein, who called the report "inaccurate and factually incorrect," is now scheduled to meet with the president Thursday.

But if Rosenstein is fired or quits, Solicitor General Noel Francisco is next in line to assume the reins of the investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 election run by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Francisco wouldn’t necessarily take on all of Rosenstein’s job duties. But because of the way Justice Department succession rules work, he is next in line to serve as acting attorney general supervising that case, according to Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.

So just exactly who is the 48th solicitor general of the United States?

His old firm represented the Trump campaign

Until his most recent government appointment, Francisco, 49, was a partner at Jones Day, a well-connected law firm with international clients, where he was the chair of the firm’s Government Regulation Practice.

He was at the firm when it represented the president's 2016 campaign though there's no evidence he worked on any campaign-related matters. Still, being at the firm is enough to disqualify him from managing the Mueller probe, according to a tweet Monday from Walter Shaub, the former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

Neal Katyal, a private attorney who served as acting solicitor general from May 2010 until June 2011 under President Barack Obama, wrote in a tweet Monday that Francisco already "has been recusing from matters in which his former law firm is involved."

If Francisco recused himself, experts such as Katyal say the line-of-succession rules mean the Russia probe would fall under the associate attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, a post now occupied by Steven Engel.

He represented former Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell

In his role as solicitor general, Francisco argues regularly before the U.S. Supreme Court representing the government's interests. The person who holds that job is often referred to as the "10th justice."

But before his latest gig, he represented former Virginia Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell, whose conviction on charges of corruption was unanimously overturned by the nation's highest court in 2016.

As a private lawyer, Francisco also represented religious nonprofits whose battles against having to offer insurance coverage for contraceptives under the Affordable Care Act were given another chance before lower courts.

He was a lawyer under George W. Bush

From 2001 to 2003, Francisco served as an associate counsel to President George W. Bush. From 2003 to 2005, he also served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, according to his profile on the solicitor general's website.

Francisco is of Filipino descent and gave a speech in May where he spoke about how his father served as his greatest inspiration.

Francisco is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School.

Among the luminaries to have held the solicitor general's job were President William Howard Taft; Supreme Court Justices Robert Jackson, Thurgood Marshall and Elena Kagan; Archibald Cox, who served as Watergate special prosecutor during Richard Nixon's presidency; Robert Bork, who fired Cox in the 1973 "Saturday Night Massacre" and whose Supreme Court nomination was defeated in 1987; and Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel whose probe nearly brought down President Bill Clinton.

Contributing: Richard Wolf and Brad Heath, USA TODAY