‘I am with Mueller. He shares my view. Duty calls. Sometimes the moment chooses us…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Judicial Watch said Wednesday that documents obtained in an open-records request revealed some of the secretive machinations of former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein during the early days of the Trump presidency.
Rosenstein was revealed last year to have suggested wearing a wire in meetings with President Donald Trump and to have discussed with then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to declare Trump ‘unfit’ for office.
He officially resigned in May, shortly after the conclusion of the Mueller investigation that he oversaw for nearly two years.
Yet, the disclosure of two weeks’ worth of emails from May 2017 revealed to an even greater degree how Rosenstein went above and beyond the scope of his duties in engaging those who sought to undermine and damage the new president.
“These astonishing emails further confirm the dishonest corruption behind Rosenstein’s appointment of Robert Mueller,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a press release.
Just days before Rosenstein hired Mueller, the former FBI director, to lead the Russia collusion investigation as special counsel, the deputy attorney general wrote in an email with the subject “I assume you realize” that “The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions.”
Other messages underscored the recently appointed DAG’s concerns for discretion, fearful that his own job was on the line—along with pressure from anti-Trump politicians and activists to appoint a special counsel while touting his “apolitical” reputation.
In a May 16 message to Mark Filip, who had previously served as a deputy attorney general under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Rosenstein wrote, “I am with Mueller. He shares my view. Duty calls. Sometimes the moment chooses us.”
Also included in the correspondence were messages with reporters from The Washington Post and the New York Times, in which Rosenstein provided “off the record” background and offers feedback on story drafts.
Fitton said they “show a shockingly cozy relationship between Mr. Rosenstein and anti-Trump media reporters.”
The documents begin on May 8, the day Rosenstein submitted a memo (he later claimed he was pressured to write it) advocating for the firing of Obama-era FBI Director James Comey.
The request ends on May 22, five days after Mueller was appointed to investigate claims of Russian collusion within the Trump campaign.
In addition to the firing of Comey and hiring of Mueller, the period also covers the span of Rosenstein’s infamous meeting with McCabe and other crucial events that set the foundation for subsequent—and ongoing—attacks on Trump’s executive authority.
Although Mueller may have known early on that there was no evidence of collusion, he remained tight-lipped until March 2019, allowing Democrats in the November 2018 midterm election to retake the House of Representatives on promises of impeachment and assurances that the special counsel investigation would yield incriminating evidence.
Mueller’s report produced no such evidence for impeachment. However, House Democrats, undeterred, formally launched an impeachment investigation in September based on entirely unrelated and still unsubstantiated claims.