Rosenstein Defends the Mueller Probe
By Andrew C. McCarthy
October 20, 2018 5:30 AM
From his interview in the Wall Street Journal, you would never know that his tenure at the Justice Department has been fraught with controversy.
Well, did you think Rod Rosenstein was going to say, “You got me. The Mueller probe was inappropriate and politicized?â€
No, you didn’t. And the deputy attorney general did not disappoint. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Rosenstein defended the investigation as “appropriate and independent.â€
The Journal’s Sadie Gurman observes that this assessment contrasts sharply with President Trump’s description of the investigation as “rigged†and a “witch hunt.†In an obvious sense, this is not much of a point. Not only did Rosenstein appoint Robert Mueller in May 2017; the special counsel answers to Rosenstein in the Justice Department’s chain of command. If the probe is a rigged witch hunt, then Rosenstein is the ultimate culprit. Who would expect him to cop to such a thing even if it were true?
Still, there is also a sense in which Rosenstein’s defense of the investigation resonates. For all of the president’s Twitter tantrums about how the investigation is supposedly “rigged,†Mueller has never alleged that the Trump campaign was complicit in Russia’s election meddling.
more
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/rod-rosenstein-interview-defends-mueller-probe/
