Tag: Rod Rosenstein

Sessions joins Barr in pleading ignorance about Trump DOJ spying – is Rosenstein the guy or are they setting him up?

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Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions late Friday afternoon announced that he too, just like former Attorney General Bill Barr, had no idea the Dept. of Justice was spying on at least two top House Democrats on the Intelligence Committee. The scandal has shaken both the DOJ and the general public so broadly the Inspector General – less than 24 hours after The New York Times bombshell dropped – announced a wide-ranging internal investigation.

The track records of both Barr and Sessions when it comes to telling the truth – even under oath – are questionable at best and subject to interpretation.

Are they setting former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein up to take the fall? Or was it Rosenstein all along? Or both – were they all in on spying on Democrats? Continue reading.

‘We Need to Take Away Children,’ No Matter How Young, Justice Dept. Officials Said

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Top department officials were “a driving force” behind President Trump’s child separation policy, a draft investigation report said.

WASHINGTON — The five U.S. attorneys along the border with Mexico, including three appointed by President Trump, recoiled in May 2018 against an order to prosecute all undocumented immigrants even if it meant separating children from their parents. They told top Justice Department officials they were “deeply concerned” about the children’s welfare.

But the attorney general at the time, Jeff Sessions, made it clear what Mr. Trump wanted on a conference call later that afternoon, according to a two-year inquiry by the Justice Department’s inspector general into Mr. Trump’s “zero tolerance” family separation policy.

“We need to take away children,” Mr. Sessions told the prosecutors, according to participants’ notes. One added in shorthand: “If care about kids, don’t bring them in. Won’t give amnesty to people with kids.” Continue reading.

Rosenstein blocked FBI from probing Trump’s Russian ties — then ordered Mueller to ignore them as well

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One of the many oddities of the now-terminated Robert Mueller probe into Russian election interference and its links to various members of the Trump campaign and family, and in fact of all known federal probes into Russia’s Trump-related actions, has been the seeming lack of any counterintelligence probe on Donald Trump’s myriad, longstanding financial connections to Russia—and what role those financial ties have played both in the Russian government’s actions on behalf of Trump and their possible leverage over the now-president.

A new story from The New York Times‘ Michael Schmidt reports that that’s because in the first months of the new Trump administration, former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein shuttered that investigation—then ordered special counsel Robert Mueller to steer clear of it himself. It’s not that the counterintelligence investigation into Trump’s known ties to Russian crime figures, to money laundering, and his family’s stated reliance on Russian cash has been kept closely-held: It never existed. And it still doesn’t.

The accusation being leveled by acting Federal Bureau of Investigation director Andrew McCabe against Rosenstein goes further, suggesting that Rosenstein intentionally misled him. Schmidt reports that McCabe launched a counterintelligence probe into Trump’s Russian ties immediately after Trump’s firing of former FBI director James Comey, a move that was widely publicly speculated to be a Trump move to quash investigations into Russian election actions and into numerous of Trump’s top advisers and allies. The fear within the intelligence community was that Trump’s behaviors could be impacted by unknown Russian pressures, representing an immediate national security threat. Continue reading.

Justice Dept. Never Fully Examined Trump’s Ties to Russia, Ex-Officials Say

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The former deputy attorney general maneuvered to keep investigators from completing an inquiry into whether the president’s personal and financial links to Russia posed a national security threat.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department secretly took steps in 2017 to narrow the investigation into Russian election interference and any links to the Trump campaign, according to former law enforcement officials, keeping investigators from completing an examination of President Trump’s decades-long personal and business ties to Russia.

The special counsel who finished the investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, secured three dozen indictments and convictions of some top Trump advisers, and he produced a report that outlined Russia’s wide-ranging operations to help get Mr. Trump elected and the president’s efforts to impede the inquiry.

But law enforcement officials never fully investigated Mr. Trump’s own relationship with Russia, even though some career F.B.I. counterintelligence investigators thought his ties posed such a national security threat that they took the extraordinary step of opening an inquiry into them. Within days, the former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein curtailed the investigation without telling the bureau, all but ensuring it would go nowhere. Continue reading.

Rod Rosenstein says he made call to release Strzok-Page texts

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page filed separate lawsuits against the Justice Department last year.

Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein authorized the release to the media of text messages between two highly placed FBI employees who exchanged criticism of then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Justice Department has revealed in a new court filing.

Rosenstein also said in the court filing submitted shortly before midnight Friday that he made the decision to share the messages with the press in part to protect FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page from the drip effect of incremental releases of the texts by lawmakers or others.

In the messages, Strzok and Page regularly disparaged Trump and appeared to seek to reassure each other he could not be elected. Both called Trump an “idiot” and said Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton deserved to win. Continue reading.

Rod Rosenstein officially bows out — and bows to Trump

President Trump suggested Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein participated in the planning of “a very illegal act” against him. He suggested Rosenstein was a “totally conflicted” overseer of the Russia investigation. He flirted with firing him, saying he had the right to do so “absolutely.” And he regularly derided him as a Democrat from Baltimore, even though neither was true; Rosenstein is a Republican from Pennsylvania.

On Monday, after spending the last few weeks defending and lending his credibility to Attorney General William P. Barr’s handling of the end of the Russia probe, Rosenstein announced his resignation with a distinctly pro-Trump message.

In his resignation letter announcing his May 11 exit, Rosenstein praised Trump’s inaugural message two years ago and said he was grateful “for the courtesy and humor you often display in our personal conversations.” He even signed off by borrowing Trump’s political slogan, saying, “We keep the faith, we follow the rules, and we always put America first.”

View the complete April 29 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.

Rosenstein submits resignation letter to Trump

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein notified President Trump on Monday that he will leave the Justice Department in two weeks, capping roughly two years in the Trump administration marked by scrutiny and controversy.

“I am grateful to you for the opportunity to serve; for the courtesy and humor you often display in our personal conversations; and for the goals you set in your inaugural address: patriotism, unity, safety, education, and prosperity, because ‘a nation exists to serve its citizens,’” Rosenstein wrote in his resignation letter. He said his last day at the Justice Department would be May 11.

Rosenstein’s resignation does not come as a surprise; he was expected to leave the Justice Department following the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, having communicated to Attorney General William Barr that he intended to serve just two years in the administration.

View the complete April 29 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

‘I can land the plane’: How Rosenstein tried to mollify Trump, protect Mueller and save his job

Rod J. Rosenstein, again, was in danger of losing his job. The New York Times had just reported that — in the heated days after James B. Comey was fired as FBI director — the deputy attorney general had suggested wearing a wire to surreptitiously record President Trump. Now Trump, traveling in New York, was on the phone, eager for an explanation.

Rosenstein — who, by one account, had gotten teary-eyed just before the call in a meeting with Trump’s chief of staff — sought to defuse the volatile situation and assure the president he was on his team, according to people familiar with matter. He criticized the Times report, published in late September, and blamed it on former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, whose recollections formed its basis. Then he talked about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and told the president he would make sure Trump was treated fairly, people familiar with the conversation said.

“I give the investigation credibility,” Rosenstein said, according to an administration official with knowledge of what was said during the call. “I can land the plane.”

View the complete April 26 article by Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey and Devlin Barrett on The Washington Post website here.

There’s a glaring omission in the Mueller report — and the obstruction of justice question hinges on it

Did President Donald Trump obstruct justice in the course of the Russia investigation? According to a new letter from Attorney General Bill Barr, Special Counsel Robert Mueller did not answer that question directly, only providing evidence for and against the proposition. But Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded, reading Mueller’s report, that there is not enough evidence to bring the charge of obstruction against Trump.

But there’s a key problem with this conclusion: Trump was never formally interviewed by Mueller.

Though he answered written questions from the special counsel, Trump steadfastly refused to sit down with him, despite having promised that he would testify in the case under oath. And this is particularly problematic because, as Barr noted in his letter, Trump’s intent with regard to potentially obstructive acts is a key factor when determining whether a crime was committed. How can the investigators come to a conclusion about Trump’s intent without asking him questions and assessing his answers?

View the complete March 24 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Trump to nominate Jeffrey Rosen as Rosenstein replacement


The White House announced Tuesday night that President Donald Trump plans to nominate Deputy Transportation Secretary Jeffrey Rosen to replace Rod Rosenstein as deputy attorney general.

Rosenstein has been overseeing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russia’s 2016 election meddling and related actions by the president and his associates. He said earlier Tuesday he plans to leave in mid-March.

Rosen is a Washington veteran who returned to the Transportation Department in 2017 after being its general counsel under President George W. Bush from 2003 to 2006. He also served as general counsel and senior policy adviser for Bush’s Office of Management and Budget from 2006 to 2009.

View the complete February 19 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.