Robert Mueller’s boss, Dep. Atty. Gen. Ron Rosenstein goes on the offense in wanting the House Intelligence Committee to investigate its own staff for possibly spreading ‘fake’ accounts Rosenstein calling for a criminal probe of House staff in a private meeting between Rosenstein and House Intel head Rep. Devin Nunes….
Rosenstein was threatened with contempt by House Republicans for not turning over certain Mueller case information that Mueller and Rosenstein believed would be promptly leaked to Trump and the public….
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s ongoing battle with House Republicans reached new heights Tuesday, as the No. 2 senior leader of the Justice Department plans to call on the House to investigate its own committee staff.
Rosenstein has butted heads with House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes for months over a subpoena for documents related to the Russia investigation, but the battle spilled out into public view Tuesday after Fox News reported staff on the committee felt “personally attacked” at a meeting with Rosenstein in January.
Justice Department officials dispute the recounting of the closed-door meeting detailed in the story, and Rosenstein now plans to “request that the House general counsel conduct an internal investigation of these Congressional staffers’ conduct” when he returns from a foreign trip this week, a Justice Department official said.
“The Deputy Attorney General never threatened anyone in the room with a criminal investigation,” the official said. “The FBI Director, the senior career ethics adviser for the Department, and the Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs who were all present at this meeting are all quite clear that the characterization of events laid out here is false.
“The Deputy Attorney General was making the point — after being threatened with contempt — that as an American citizen charged with the offense of contempt of Congress, he would have the right to defend himself, including requesting production of relevant emails and text messages and calling them as witnesses to demonstrate that their allegations are false”….