Rosenstein Defends the Mueller Probe
Well, did you think Rod Rosenstein was going to say, “You got me. The Mueller probe was inappropriate and politicized?”
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.”
Rosenstein brought Mueller in to help Rosenstein, not Trump. The deputy attorney general was under withering attack by Democrats after the firing of FBI director James Comey and the administration’s multiple, conflicting explanations for it. He appointed Mueller at the end of a frenetic week in which, reportedly distraught, he discussed the possibility of covertly recording Trump at meetings to demonstrate the latter’s instability. This would be a prelude to invoking the 25th Amendment, the Constitution’s vehicle for sidelining a president who is non compos mentis.
The Mueller appointment — after Rosenstein considered naming former Obama deputy attorney general James Cole — was designed to signal to the Washington establishment that Rosenstein (confirmed 94–6, thanks to overwhelming Democratic support in the Senate) was still on the team.
...The widespread effort by Russians to interfere in the election was the subject of intelligence reporting long before Mueller came on the scene. His investigation did not reveal it, nor were his indictments necessary to document it.
Andrew McCarthy...
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