A top Republican lawmaker has asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if he thinks he should recuse himself from oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller.
In a letter dated May 31 but obtained by the Washington Examiner on Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked Rosenstein if he considers himself a potential witness in Mueller’s investigation.
“If not, why not?” he wrote. “If so, should you recuse yourself from further interactions with and oversight of the Mueller investigation?”
Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel in May 2017 after the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Rosenstein is acting attorney general in this situation, and has oversight into every move the Mueller investigation makes — he also is the only one with constitutional authority to fire the special counsel.
Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible links to the Trump campaign. He is also investigating if President Trump obstructed justice when he fired former FBI Director James Comey, which happened less than two weeks before Mueller was appointed.
Graham noted that Trump relied on a memo written by Rosenstein to fire Comey, and wondered if that could be the source of a potential Rosenstein-Mueller conflict.
Graham said on Fox News that he wants an answer “sooner rather than later” from Rosenstein. The Justice Department declined to comment on the letter.
The pressure from Graham, a Trump ally, comes as Trump has upped his public criticisms of Sessions for his recusal from all Russia related matters.
“The Russian Witch Hunt Hoax continues, all because Jeff Sessions didn’t tell me he was going to recuse himself,” Trump said in a tweet earlier Tuesday. “I would have quickly picked someone else. So much time and money wasted, so many lives ruined…and Sessions knew better than most that there was No Collusion!”
