Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told House Judiciary Committee members Thursday it would be inappropriate to recuse himself from the Russia probe and pushed back against accusations of leaking by the Office of the Special Counsel.
REP. DESANTIS: “You – talk about the Mueller investigation – it’s really the Rosenstein investigation. You appointed Mueller, you’re supervising Mueller. It’s supposedly about collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and obstruction of Justice – but you wrote the memo saying that Comey should be fired and you signed the FISA extension for Carter Page. Seems like you should be recused from this more than Jeff Sessions. You were involved in making decisions affecting both prongs in this investigation.”
DAG ROSENSTEIN: “Congressman, I can sure you that If it were appropriate for me to recuse, I’d be more than happy to do so and let someone else handle this. But it’s my responsibility to do it.”
REP. DESANTIS: “Then how do you have obstruction possibility for a president exercising his powers to fire an FBI director that you said should be fired — and oh by the way — the IG report makes it clear Jim Comey should have been fired – so why are we still doing this with the Mueller probe?”
DAG ROSENSTEIN: “Sir, I am not commenting on what’s under investigation by the Mueller probe. To the best of my knowledge neither is Mr. Mueller — I know there’s a lot of speculation in the media about that — But that doesn’t relieve me of my obligation to not to discuss the subject matter of the investigation.”
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