If the deputy attorney general resigns or gets fired, oversight of the Trump-Russia investigation would fall to the Justice Department’s No. 3, Rachel Brand.
Senate Democrats who opposed her nomination to the No. 3 job at the Justice Department said her legal career reflected a tendency always to support Big Business against the little guy, and they questioned her commitment to civil liberties during her years in the department under President George W. Bush.
.. She has a “heavily skewed pro-corporate agenda,” said Senator Patrick Leahy
.. Brand was confirmed to her job on a party-line Senate vote of 52 to 46.
.. Rosenstein .. has privately conferred with Brand about the possibility that she will need to take over the department’s oversight of Mueller
.. She was active in the Federalist Society, the conservative lawyer’s group that has long been a talent pool for anyone interested in serving in the administration of a Republican president or on the Supreme Court.
.. hired as a Supreme Court clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
.. In 2011, Brand became a top lawyer for the United States Chamber of Commerce
.. “If you hire a lawyer, they are going to represent your view. We can’t assume an attorney personally believes in what they are advocating on behalf of their clients. Just ask criminal defense lawyers.”
.. she might now be confronting the “tough task of insulating the investigation from the erratic and inappropriate behavior of President Trump.”
.. Rosenstein might welcome turning over the responsibilities to Brand because it would take him out of the immediate line of fire