Caricature by DonkeyHotey flic.kr/p/Ct4G4K https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
A little earlier today, I posted on the growing conflict between Congress, or at least the Freedom Caucus and a few committee chairmen, and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein over access to DOJ documents. To date, Rosenstein has had three very public clashes with Congress over document production and he’s come away from each fight battered, bloodied, and not a damned bit the wiser. The situation has reached a point where Rosenstein was threatened with a contempt of Congress citation and now articles of impeachment are being circulated. Whatever his motives, Rosenstein is giving a great impression of telling a GOP Congress to FOAD while relentlessly protecting all members of the Obama administration from scrutiny.
Now President Trump seems to have weighed in on the debate:
A Rigged System – They don’t want to turn over Documents to Congress. What are they afraid of? Why so much redacting? Why such unequal “justice?” At some point I will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the Presidency and get involved!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2018
The “they” is pretty obviously the Justice Department.
Odds are the “unequal justice” refers to this among other cases, such as the Clinton email scandal:
A key House Republican on Tuesday asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate whether former President Barack Obama administration officials pressured the FBI to “stand down” from its probe of the Clinton Foundation that was ongoing during Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in a letter to Sessions that he wants an investigation into Sally Yates, who Obama appointed to serve as the deputy attorney general at the time. Goodlatte wants to know if Yates ordered her principal associate deputy attorney general, or PADAG, to call the FBI and ask for the probe of the Clinton Foundation to end.
“The American people continue to learn new information on a regular basis calling into question law enforcement’s impartiality, and creating the perception that the last administration was using political power to affect the outcome of investigations,” Goodlatte wrote to sessions.
There is no good reason for Rosenstein to create a hostile relationship with a GOP congress. It needs to stop and Rosenstein needs to take seriously the scandals of the Obama era. He needs to examine the decision not to charge either Weiner or Abedin with illegal possession of classified documents. He needs to re-open the investigation of the Clinton Foundation. He needs to take another look at Uranium One…oh, that’s right, he’s part of the Uranium One investigation. If he were taking these things seriously, Congress wouldn’t be digging in his crap. Ultimately, Rosenstein is either going to have to realize that he’s not calling the shots in this drama or he’s got to go.
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