Reduced Russiagate

Not too much happened in Russiagate yesterday; it's almost like something else sucked all the oxygen out of the news. Conway: Trump And Rosenstein Committed To “Resolving This Once And For All” … Sometime; Update: Next Week. and Trump postpones meeting with Rosenstein until next week

"The president spoke with Rod Rosenstein a few minutes ago and they plan to meet next week," press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters. "They do not want to do anything to interfere with the hearing."

The White House said earlier this week that the purpose of Trump and Rosenstein's meeting would be to discuss the deputy attorney general's future at the Justice Department, amid conflicting reports Monday that Rosenstein was either planning to resign or expecting to be fired.

By midweek, however, Trump appeared to have moved away from the idea of firing Rosenstein. "My preference would be to keep him," Trump said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon in New York. "I would certainly prefer not" firing him.

How close did he come to getting fired?  White House aides told DOJ official to prepare to take over Rosenstein's job

White House aides this week told a senior Department of Justice official to prepare to replace Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein following reports that Rosenstein was ready to resign, according to a New York Times report.

White House chief of staff John Kelly reportedly told Matthew Whitaker, the chief of staff for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, that he was next in line to replace Rosenstein if President Trump fired his deputy attorney general or if he resigned.

Aides dropped the plan to bring Whitaker on board by late Monday morning, the Times reported.

Goodlatte subpoenas McCabe memos, materials in response to Rosenstein 'wire' report. Good for Goodlatte.

Goodlatte, R-Va., penned a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions Thursday notifying him of the subpoena, which was issued as part of his investigation with House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.

“Given the Department’s ongoing delays and/or refusal to produce these documents, I am left with no choice but to issue the enclosed subpoena to compel their production,” Goodlatte wrote to Sessions. Goodlatte gave the Justice Department an October 4 deadline to provide the documents.

Also good. House Intelligence Committee to vote on releasing Russia interview transcripts

The House Intelligence Committee will vote Friday to release the transcripts of more than 50 interviews the panel conducted as part of its investigation into Russian election meddling, the committee posted Wednesday.

The vote, scheduled by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, will pave the way for the public release of closed-door interviews with senior Trump associates — including Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Hope Hicks and Jeff Sessions — as well as several senior Obama administration officials.

The transcripts will not be immediately released after the committee votes Friday. The vote will send them to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a classification review before they are released. Most of the committees interviews were unclassified, though some were conducted in classified session.

The transcripts will provide thousands of pages to detail what was a tense, partisan battle fought between Democrats and Republicans on the committee, with an investigation that ended in accusations, finger-pointing and name calling between the two sides.

But they also are likely to provide the first look at how some of the key players in the Russia investigation explain events like the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting and the WikiLeaks' release of Democratic emails during the 2016 campaign.