House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., threatened to go around House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, if the GOP leader won’t allow a floor vote on the resolution.
Meadows announced Wednesday night that he had filed a resolution alongside Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and nine other colleagues to impeach Rosenstein, accusing the second-ranking Justice Department official of trying to stymie congressional oversight of Mueller’s investigation.
The resolution was filed Wednesday as a nonprivileged motion, meaning Ryan would have to approve it for a vote on the House floor. Meadows said they could instead file it as a privileged motion, requiring a vote on the House floor within two days.
“We hope that it doesn’t have to come to that,” Meadows told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham. “But, starting tomorrow, we can bring it up as a privileged motion. … That’s something that any member of Congress, Jim or I can do. And quite frankly, it’s either we hold him in contempt or we get the documents or we impeach him.”
Under Rosenstein’s leadership, the Justice Department has obstructed congressional oversight, Meadows said. “The stonewalling over this last year has been just as bad or worse than under the Obama administration.”
The document demands relate to the ongoing Russia investigation as well as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
More than 880,000 pages of documents have been made available to the House Judiciary Committee through a subpoena, the Justice Department said. Two subpoenas from the House Intelligence Committee have also been fully complied with, according to Justice Department officials.
Democrats have accused Republicans of targeting Rosenstein to weaken Mueller’s investigation.
