Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave his role at the Justice Department by mid-March, a senior DOJ official told Fox News on Monday.
An official announcement of who has been selected to replace Rosenstein could come as early as this week. A Trump administration official added that Attorney General William Barr has picked Jeffrey Rosen, who currently serves as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, to take over for Rosenstein.
A graduate of Northwestern University and Harvard Law School, Rosen previously served as General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor for the White House Office of Management and Budget (2006 to 2009) and as General Counsel at the Department of Transportation (2003 to 2006), according to his online biography.
Rosen, confirmed for his current role by the Senate in May 2017, works under Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao in overseeing the daily operations of the department.
Fox News reported in January that Rosenstein was expected to step down in the coming weeks to ensure a smooth transition for Barr, who was sworn-in on Thursday.
Rosenstein long thought of his role as a two-year position and the two-year mark is coming soon, officials close to the departing attorney general previously told Fox News.
TRUMP ACCUSES ROSENSTEIN, MCCABE OF PURSUING 'ILLEGAL AND TREASONOUS' PLOT AGAINST PRESIDENCY
Speculation of Rosenstein’s departure mounted after the firing of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in November. He has, until recently, overseen Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into whether Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. Rosenstein has often been a target of President Trump on Twitter.
Most recently, Trump accused Rosenstein, along with former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, of pursuing an "illegal and treasonous" plot against him after McCabe detailed private DOJ discussions about secretly recording and potentially ousting the president.
“He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught," the president tweeted early Monday.
Trump continued: "There is a lot of explaining to do to the millions of people who had just elected a president who they really like and who has done a great job for them with the Military, Vets, Economy and so much more. This was the illegal and treasonous ‘insurance policy’ in full action!”
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Rosenstein, who was nominated to his post by Trump in 2017, repeatedly has denied he "pursued or authorized recording the president" and also has denied McCabe's suggestion that the deputy attorney general had broached the idea of invoking the Constitution's 25th Amendment, which allows Cabinet members to seek the removal of a president if they conclude that he or she is mentally unfit.
The Justice Department echoed both denials in a statement released last week, saying Rosenstein "was not in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment."
Fox News' Shannon Bream, Matt Richardson and Judson Berger contributed to this report.
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