But those efforts have not quieted two of Mr. Trump’s most loyal supporters on Capitol Hill, Representatives Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Jim Jordan of Ohio. In an unusual show of defiance of their committee chairman, they have insisted the agreement is not good enough and that they need access to an unredacted version of an August 2017 memo outlining the scope of Mr. Mueller’s investigation.
Democrats fear that the requests — many of which call on the department to ignore longstanding policy about what it shares with Congress — are merely meant to provide Mr. Trump with a reason to fire Mr. Mueller.
Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said the latest Republican efforts were “clearly trying to sabotage” the Mueller investigation and court a confrontation with Mr. Rosenstein.
“All of this noise is aimed at undermining the special counsel’s work as the investigation closes in on the president,” Mr. Nadler said in a statement. “The president’s attacks on the Department of Justice grow more paranoid by the day. The case for obstruction of justice — and the complicity of these House Republicans — grows day by day as well.”
Mr. Rosenstein has made clear he does not intend to go further.
The Justice Department wrote to Mr. Meadows and Mr. Jordan on Monday to deny them access to the document about the scope of the Russia inquiry, citing department policy against sharing information on a continuing investigation.
And on Tuesday, reacting to reports that Mr. Meadows had drafted articles of impeachment to use against him if needed, Mr. Rosenstein declared that the Justice Department would not be extorted.
“There have been people who have been making threats, privately and publicly, against me for quite some time,” he said at an event in Washington. “And I think they should understand by now, the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted.”
Mr. Meadows fired back, saying that Mr. Rosenstein was stonewalling legitimate oversight requests and calling on him to resign.
Last month, Mr. Trump said Mr. Rosenstein faced conflicts of interest and criticized him for signing a search warrant application to permit federal agents to eavesdrop on one of the president’s former campaign aides. Mr. Rosenstein assumed oversight of the investigation and appointed Mr. Mueller as special counsel after the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recused himself last year. Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked Mr. Sessions for his recusal.
The president has previously said he is frustrated that he is not supposed to be involved with Justice Department matters.
“I am not supposed to be involved with the F.B.I. I’m not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing. And I’m very frustrated by it,” Mr. Trump said in an interview last November.
The president’s threats, though vague, come at a time when he has been on the defensive after the disclosure of more than 40 questions that the special counsel would like him to answer. The questions touch on a variety of topics, including coordination with the Russians during the presidential campaign and actions Mr. Trump has taken as president and whether they were intended to derail the inquiry, undercutting the president’s repeated claims that the investigation is a “hoax.”
Continue reading the main story
[ad_2]
Source link
0 comments: