Ryan opposes effort to impeach Rosenstein
Speaker warns of ‘cavalier’ approach, legislative delays.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Thursday that he opposes an effort by conservatives to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, as Republican leaders of the chamber sought to avert a vote on the volatile issue later in the day.
Ryan’s comments came hours after 11 House Republicans introduced a resolution to impeach the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, who they have accused of withholding documents and being insufficiently transparent in his handling of the Russia probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Ryan, R-Wis., said it is important for the House to be able to conduct oversight of the Justice Department and that he sympathized with the frustration voiced by his colleagues. But Ryan said he’d seen nothing that rises to the standard of impeachment.
“I don’t think we should be cavalier,” he told reporters. “I don’t think this rises to ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.’ ”
He also raised the specter of impeachment proceedings tying both the House and Senate in knots, delaying other agenda items, potentially including the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Conservative hard-liners earlier agreed to hold off on pushing for an impeachment vote on Thursday after securing a commitment from GOP leaders to punish Justice Department officials with a contempt of Congress if they do not deliver specified documents in the coming weeks.
The deal essentially puts off the showdown until after lawmakers return from a five-week recess set to begin after Thursday’s votes. The lawmakers spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
The 11 Republicans, led by Reps. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, filed their resolution to impeach Rosenstein late Wednesday in a direct attack on a Trump administration law enforcement official.
The Justice Department insists that it has cooperated with the demands from Congress. Officials have said that they have provided the vast majority of information sought in subpoenas from two key House committees — and are nearly done with providing all the outstanding information requested in those subpoenas.
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said earlier Thursday that he supports the effort by conservative lawmakers to impeach Rosenstein, calling it “leverage” to get the Justice Department to provide Congress with more documents related to the Russia probe.
Scalise, who is the third-ranking Republican in the House and is eyeing a bid to become speaker, said during an interview with Fox News that he would vote for the resolution if it reaches the floor but would not say whether he expected a vote Thursday before members leave for summer recess.
“It’s more about leverage to let the Justice Department know we’re serious about getting the final information they haven’t sent us,” Scalise told The Washington Post.
“This is another tool to get Justice to comply with our subpoenas and our demands for documents that the American people deserve to get,” he said. “They need to start complying. Obviously they have given us a number of things, but they’ve still held back some of the documents we need .... ”
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., suggested slowing down the process, saying that the Justice Department should comply with documents requests but that the resolution should be dealt with in a committee first before being considered on the floor.
“People are discussing” how to handle the situation, McCarthy said. “What everybody’s trying to do is get the information. I think what would make this resolution go away is to supply the information to the House.”
Democrats have said that House Republicans’ clashes with Rosenstein are little more than a pretext to weaken Mueller’s efforts.
Some Republicans questioned the wisdom of the impeachment effort.
“Reckless publicity stunt,” Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., tweeted Wednesday night. “No different from Dems who filed articles of impeachment against the President some months ago. What a sad, pathetic game of ‘how low can you go?’ ”
Meanwhile, Attorney General Jeff Sessions expressed confidence in Rosenstein when asked about the impeachment effort during a news conference in Boston on Thursday.
“My deputy, Rod Rosenstein, is highly capable,” Sessions said. “I have the highest confidence in him.”
Meadows and Jordan are leaders of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, a bloc whose members have been among the most persistent critics of Rosenstein. All 11 lawmakers who filed the resolution are members.
Scalise said he is “very disappointed” in the Justice Department.
“They need to be transparent to the American people,” he said. “We’ve given them a lot of time, and it’s time for them to take this serious, to turn over the remaining documents and stop stonewalling and stop trying to hide the facts from the American people.”
In a joint statement Wednesday, the top Democrats on three House committees called the resolution a “direct attack” on the Mueller probe and warned President Donald Trump not to use it as a pretext to fire Rosenstein or Mueller. “Any attempt to do so will be viewed by Congress and the American people as further proof of an effort to obstruct justice with severe consequences for Trump and his presidency,” said Reps. Elijah E. Cummings, Md., Jerrold Nadler, N.Y., and Adam B. Schiff, Calif.
Meadows and Jordan filed the resolution Wednesday, a little more than an hour after leaving a meeting with top Justice Department officials, including FBI General Counsel Dana Boente and Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz. Leaving the meeting, Meadows said there was “still great frustration” with the pace at which subpoenaed documents had been produced to Congress.