David Frum seems to think so. In a piece entitled "Rosenstein’s Departure Is a National Emergency," Frum goes on a stream of consciousness tirade that Rosenstein's departure will somehow upend the rule of law. And, perhaps more worryingly to Frum, "[i]f the president can browbeat Rosenstein into resigning—or even plausibly misrepresent the firing as a resignation—Trump gains the power to bypass the Senate confirmation process under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. He can replace Rosenstein with any serving official previously confirmed by the Senate to any other job." The horror, the horror!
I don't think that it is lost on Frum that senior government officials work at the pleasure of the Chief Executive, the President--he just doesn't want his readers to realize it. Trump would be within his rights--and in accord with the law--to terminate Rosenstein for any reason or no reason at all. Rosenstein works at the sufferance of the President, not the Senate, the federal bureaucracy, or newspaper and magazine columnists.
What we see here is Frum defending the deep state (deep statists?): the unelected bureaucrats that have immunized themselves from the will of the people or their elected representatives, pressing forward with their pet policies and to hell with the citizenry.
Pearl Harbor was a national emergency, the 9/11 attacks were a national emergency. Some statist flunky losing his job is not.
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