Deputy AG defends Mueller from attacks
Citing FBI texts, Republicans claim anti-Trump bias.
De p uty Attorney General Rod Rosenstein defended special counsel Robert Mueller in the face of critical questioning Wednesday from the House Judiciary Committee about whether bias might have infected Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Rosenstein said that he had not seen good cause to fire Mueller, and that although some members of the special counsel team had politi- cal views, that did not necessarily taint their work.
“We recognize we have employees with political opinions. It’s our respon- sibility to make sure those opinions do not influence their actions,” Rosenstein said. “I believe that Direc- tor Mueller understands that and he is running his office appropriately.”
Rosenstein also said he and Mueller talked about what his office was allowed to investigate and what it was not, though he declined to answer directly whether he had granted Mueller permission to expand his mandate.
“It’s a clarification in most cases,” Rosenstein said. Asked later if President Trump — who has in the past expressed concern about the scope of the probe — had ever talked with him about removing Mueller, Rosenstein responded, “I am not going to be discuss- ing my communications with the president, but I can tell you that nobody has com- municated to me a desire to remove Robert Mueller.”
Rosenstein’s appearance, which began at 10 a.m., comes the morning after texts between two senior FBI officials that disparaged Trump and expressed fear that he might w in were turned over to lawmakers. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., referred to the texts in his opening statement, saying they were “deeply troubling to all citizens who expect a system of blind and equal justice.”
“Department of Justice investigations must not be tainted by individuals imposing their own political prejudices,” Goodlatte said.
The officials who exchanged the messages — senior FBI agent Peter Strzok and senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page — once worked for Mueller’s team and were key players in a prior investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Muel- ler is investigating whether the Trump campaign and the Kremlin coordinated to influence the 2016 election and already has charged or negotiated plea deals with four people, including for- mer Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Even before the messages were revealed, some Republicans had accused Mueller’s team of harboring inappropriate bias, pointing to political contributions by several members to Clinton or other Democrats. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, read each of the donations to Rosenstein on Wednesday, asking how he could “with a straight face” say they were impartial.
Democrats, meanwhile, stood up for Mueller, who himself is a registered Republican.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said there was nothing wrong with the officials expressing “private political views via private text messages.” Strzok, in particular, “did not say anything about Donald Trump that the majority of Americans weren’t also thinking at the same time,” he said.
Strzok was removed from Mueller’s team in late July when his bosses found out about the texts. By that time, Page already had left for unrelated reasons.