Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein stands at the center of the controversy over the president’s apparent attempt to obstruct an FBI investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russia ties. Rosenstein played a key role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey earlier this month, as well as last week’s decision to appoint former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel in charge of the Russia inquiry. With Attorney General Jeff Sessions having recused himself from the case back in March, Rosenstein is the highest-ranking official in the Justice Department overseeing Mueller’s efforts to uncover how exactly the Russians interfered with the 2016 election, what kind of help they might have received from members of the Trump team, and whether Trump himself has taken steps to cover anything up.

The fact that Rosenstein is both a central character in the story Mueller is investigating and the man responsible for supervising that investigation raises an obvious but underdiscussed question: Should Rosenstein follow Sessions’ lead and recuse himself from the Russia inquiry?

The case for Rosenstein’s recusal grows out of the case for Trump’s guilt. At this point, we have mounting evidence that the president pressured Comey to end the FBI’s inquiry into links between the Russian government and Trump’s top advisers. When Comey refused, the president fired the FBI chief and claimed he had acted based on the “clear recommendations” of Rosenstein and Sessions. Sessions, for his part, said in a letter to Trump that his recommendation was based on “the reasons expressed by the Deputy Attorney General in the attached memorandum.” That three-page memorandum from Rosenstein, in turn, faulted Comey’s handling of the probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails.

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