Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Tuesday appeared unperturbed by reports that House Republicans drafted articles of impeachment against him.
“They can’t even resist leaking their own drafts,” Rosenstein said during a moderated Q&A at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.
The Washington Post obtained a draft of the articles of impeachment that members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus compiled as a “last resort” threat to the Justice Department.
The draft did not include any signatures but listed allegations against Rosenstein, the Hill reported, including refusal to comply with a subpoena over documents about FBI surveillance during the 2016 election and “slow walking” documents on investigations into possible government misconduct.
“I just don’t have anything to say about documents like that that nobody has the courage to put their name on and they leak in that way,” Rosenstein said. “There are people who have been making threats, privately and publicly, against me for quite some time. And I think they should understand by now, the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted.”
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on @freedomcaucus members considering his impeachment: "They can't even resist leaking their own drafts." He also says, "The Department of Justice is not going to be extorted.”
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 1, 2018
Question from @lauraajarrett. pic.twitter.com/puEnP3thgA
Rosenstein, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump, has been overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian ties with Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election. The president and Republicans have dismissed the investigation as a “witch hunt” and deny collusion.
H/T the Hill