After years of DOJ service outside the spotlight, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was thrust into the public eye last week when the Trump administration cited his scathing letter of FBI Director Jim Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation as the primary reason for Comey’s sudden dismissal that took pretty much everyone by surprise, including Comey himself.
Amid the chaos, rumors quickly surfaced, courtesy of the Washington Post and anonymous sources of course, that Rosenstein threatened to resign after the White House placed the blame for Comey’s dismissal squarely at his feet. The DOJ quickly issued an on-the-record denial of the allegations, but it didn’t really matter because, as we all know, once the narrative has been planted it’s impossible to shake irrespective of facts.
DOJ on the record: Rosenstein did not threaten to resign
— Laura Jarrett (@LauraAJarrett) May 11, 2017
As such, it’s not terribly surprising that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has just announced that Rosenstein will brief the Senate on the events leading up to Comey’s abrupt dismissal this Thursday at 2:30pm EST. Per The Hill:
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will brief all 100 senators on President Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has announced.
The briefing will take place at 2:30 p.m., according to a press release.
The Senate previously invited Comey to testify at a closed session about his firing though he declined.
We can’t wait to see how many different ways Democrat Senators can find to ask whether Rosenstein threatened to quit despite his repeated denials that it ever happened.
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For those who missed it, here is the letter that Rosenstein previously wrote to Trump regarding Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation.
In the letter from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he cites the handling of Comey’s Clinton investigation, and says that Comey was wrong to cite his conclusions about the Clinton email probe in July of 2016: “I cannot defend the Director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken,” Rosenstein wrote.
Rosenstein was referring to Comey’s decision to announce in July last year that the probe of Hillary Clinton should be closed without prosecution, but then declared – 11 days before the Nov. 8 election – that he had reopened the investigation because of a discovery of a new trove of Clinton-related emails. Democrats say the decision cost Clinton victory.
Rosenstein also identified several areas in which he said Comey had erred, saying it was wrong of him to “usurp” then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s authority by announcing the initial conclusion of the email case on July 5.
Comey “announced his own conclusions about the nation’s most sensitive criminal investigation, without the authorization of duly appointed Justice Department leaders,” Rosenstein wrote. Comey also “ignored another longstanding principle” by holding a news conference to “release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation.”
via http://ift.tt/2pPLSu1 Tyler Durden