Rep. Jim Jordan on Monday called on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to appear on Capitol Hill to testify about his reported effort to undermine President Trump.
“You can’t have the head of the Justice Department (even if it’s sarcasm) talking to subordinates about recording the Commander in Chief. He needs to answer our questions,” said Jordan, R-Ohio.
[More: Rosenstein to meet with Trump Thursday]
Regardless of what happens to Mr. Rosenstein, he needs to appear in front of the Judiciary Committee.
You can’t have the head of the Justice Department (even if it’s sarcasm) talking to subordinates about recording the Commander in Chief. He needs to answer our questions.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) September 24, 2018
Never forget, the same guy who talked about recording the President
-Wrote memo for firing Comey
-Hired Mueller
-Signed Carter Page FISA renewal
-Threatened House Intel staff
-And kept docs from Congress— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) September 24, 2018
Jordan’s demand came after rumors surfaced on Monday that Rosenstein was on the verge of being fired, although it later became clear he was going to a routine White House meeting. Still, he was set to meet with Trump on Thursday to talk about a New York Times report that he tried to orchestrate a coup against Trump using the 25th Amendment.
Jordan has other complaints about Rosenstein. In July, Jordan and a handful of other GOP lawmakers filed articles of impeachment against Rosenstein for what they said was his defiance of congressional subpoenas and his move to withhold documents. However, the impeachment efforts never came to fruition and never were voted on by the House.
Rosenstein’s removal from office would be significant because he oversees special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference and possible connections to the Trump campaign — an investigation that the president consistently attacks.
The Times story was written in part from contemporaneous memos that fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe kept. On Sunday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said McCabe could soon face a subpoena to testify.
Goodlatte, R-Va., complained about a “lack of production for some documents” during an appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo, while also acknowledging that there has been a good deal of cooperation as Congress has been given access to a million documents related to decision-making during the 2016 campaign.
But there remain “key documents” that have eluded lawmakers, Goodlatte said, including the “so-called McCabe memos.”
Still, Goodlatte said these memos “could very directly bear upon this question of what was Rod Rosenstein doing in that meeting immediately prior to the appointment of Robert Mueller as the special counsel” as well as confirm whether the Times report is true.
It is unclear who leaked information on the memos to the press. McCabe’s legal team denies being behind the leak. They said the memos were given to special counsel Robert Mueller and a copy was left at the FBI at the time of his departure from the bureau earlier this year.
Goodlatte isn’t alone in his frustration on the matter. “If you really want to see them, don’t run for Congress, go be a reporter, because they have seen them and we have not,” House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Rosenstein last appeared before the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees in June to testify on the Justice Department’s inspector general report about the Justice Department and FBI’s actions in 2016 ahead of the presidential election.
