Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Finally Fights Back

WELL, it’s about time Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein stopped sitting on his hands and put up his fists.

The Department of Justice’s number two in charge has been almost as maligned as his boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and for the same reasons, by the same people.

Specifically, we’re referring to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), who determined himself to be the thorn in the side of the Russia probe, from day one.

Nunes and a group of Trump loyal Republicans in the House have been feuding with Rosenstein and the Department of Justice over subpoenaed documents, related to the probe.

The latest is a Fox News report on Tuesday, suggesting that members of the committee felt that they’d been “personally attacked” by Rosenstein, back in January.

How ridiculous. They’ve been attacking Rosenstein’s character for over a year, but now they’re clutching their pearls and calling him a bully.

Rosenstein has been relatively quiet through the attacks. Trump’s dogs in the House blame Attorney General Sessions for recusing himself, and blame Rosenstein for appointing special counsel Robert Mueller. Their goal is to uproot both men, in order to get someone in place who will fire Mueller and serve as a barrier between Trump and any pesky law-and-order issues that may arise.

Justice Department officials dispute the recounting of the closed-door meeting detailed in the story, and Rosenstein plans to “request that the House general counsel conduct an internal investigation of these Congressional staffers’ conduct” when he returns from a foreign trip this week, DOJ said.

“The Deputy Attorney General never threatened anyone in the room with a criminal investigation,” a Justice Department official said. “The FBI Director, the senior career ethics adviser for the Department, and the Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs who were all present at this meeting are all quite clear that the characterization of events laid out here is false.

Of those that were present, President Trump’s appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray has seemed pretty willing to call it like he sees it, so if he’s saying there were no personal attacks, then we can probably trust him.

The DOJ official pressed on:

“The Deputy Attorney General was making the point — after being threatened with contempt — that as an American citizen charged with the offense of contempt of Congress, he would have the right to defend himself, including requesting production of relevant emails and text messages and calling them as witnesses to demonstrate that their allegations are false,” the official said. “That is why he put them on notice to retain relevant emails and text messages, and he hopes they did so.”

That sounds fair, actually. And if they’re pushing this line that he is in contempt, he does have a right to a defense. How do they misconstrue that to mean he’s threatening them?

Another former US official, also present at the meeting, agreed that at no time did Rosenstein threaten any House staff with a criminal investigation.

Here’s another interesting tidbit in this dispute: Nunes felt so very threatened during that meeting in January, yet, he apparently went out to dinner with Rosenstein and a mutual friend that night.

According to the official, Nunes never raised any concerns during the meeting about Rosenstein’s conduct, either.

Pulling this months after the fact really is a grease-weasel move.

The DOJ official said that no formal complaint about Rosenstein’s conduct has ever been filed with the House general counsel or inspector general to his knowledge.

So we can assume the complaints were just to buy time or otherwise cause a distraction.

Good for Rosenstein for fighting back.