The newly confirmed Justice Department official who authored the memo condemning fired FBI Director Jim Comey has been “compromised” by President Trump, according to a senior House Democrat.
Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., accused deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein of displaying “a remarkable lack of integrity” by authoring a memo that argued for firing Comey in light of his violation of DOJ rules during the Clinton email investigation. Rosenstein, in concert with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, issued a formal recommendation that Comey be fired earlier this week, which Trump implemented immediately.
“Attorney General Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein offered their ‘recommendations’ for FBI Director Comey’s dismissal to give President Trump a modest cover, while in fact, the president’s anger underlay his outrageous decision to fire the person investigating him,” Engel, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said Thursday. “Their jobs are to enforce our laws, not give the president cover, and their actions leave them compromised and entangled in the president’s scandal.”
Rosenstein, who was confirmed by the Senate last month in a 94-6 vote, argued in the memo that Comey should be fired for “usurp[ing]” then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s authority to decide if Hillary Clinton should or should not be prosecuted. That mistake, per Rosenstein’s memo, was compounded by Comey’s decision to reveal “derogatory information” about Clinton in a press conference in which he criticized her for being “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information.
“The Democratic Leader [New York Sen. Chuck Schumer] just a few weeks ago praised Mr. Rosenstein for his independence and said he had developed a reputation for integrity,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday on the Senate floor. “Our Democratic colleagues [are] complaining about the removal of an FBI Director whom they themselves repeatedly and sharply criticized, by a man, Rod Rosenstein, whom they repeatedly and effusively praised — when Mr. Rosenstein recommended Mr. Comey’s removal for many of the very reasons they have complained about.”
Engel anchored his attack on Rosenstein in reports that the memo was written only after Trump had made his decision to fire Comey. “Trump gave Sessions and Rosenstein a directive: to explain in writing the case against Comey,” the Washington Post reported, citing anonymous White House officials. “Trump was angry that Comey would not support his baseless claim that President Barack Obama had his campaign offices wiretapped. Trump was frustrated when Comey revealed in Senate testimony the breadth of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s effort to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And he fumed that Comey was giving too much attention to the Russia probe and not enough to investigating leaks to journalists.”
The Democratic lawmaker argued that the firing of Comey should deter the Senate from confirming any more of Trump’s nominees to the Justice Department “until a special prosecutor and an independent commission are in place to investigate the Trump-Russia Scandal,” as he put it. “This week has already shown that his Administration puts his personal interests ahead of the rule of law,” Engel said.
