Tag: mark meadows

Impeachment!

Representatives Meadows and Jordan in the House of Representatives have just introduced a resolution to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for high crimes and misdemeanors. There are five articles written against Rosenstein.

Article I deals with Rosenstein’s refusal to recuse himself from the Russia investigation or appoint a second special counsel to investigate the conflict of interest and misconduct by the FBI.  Rosenstein was in charge of the FISA application to spy on Carter Page that was based in part on paid opposition research from the Clinton campaign.

Article II covers Rosenstein’s obstruction of justice in refusing to turn over subpoena’d documents and refusal to notify witnesses that Congress was seeking their testimony.  Interestingly, this article also hits Mueller for instructing material witnesses to refuse to provide testimony to Congress.  Congress has oversight over the Justice Department and refusing to comply with their requests amounts to obstruction of justice.

Article III accuses Rosenstein of obstruction of justice by using redaction to hide material evidence from Congress.  These redactions include hiding potentially embarrassing information about the cost of Andrew McCabe’s $70,000 conference table, hiding the relationship between Peter Strzok and FISC Judge Rudolph Contreras, hiding the names of high ranking FBI and Obama administration officials, and other redactions used to hide information from Congress.  Rosenstein’s decision to redact the relationship between Strzok and Contreras is especially important given Strzok’s promise to “stop Trump” and the FISC’s decision to issue a secret warrant based on Clinton’s paid opposition research.

Article IV suggests that Rosenstein used an improper basis to appoint Robert Mueller as special counsel and hid the basis through improper use of redaction.  Rosenstein still refuses to provide Congress with a less redacted version of his scope memo for Robert Mueller.

Article V deals more directly with Rosenstein’s supervisory role in the authorization of FISA searches.  Rosenstein is accused of failing to vet Christopher Steele’s phony dossier and failing to fully notify the FISC of the circumstances surrounding the creation of the dossier.  Article V also hits Rosenstein again for his refusal to appoint a second independent Special Counsel to review wrong doing by the Obama Justice Department and FBI in these matters.

A couple important things to note in the impeachment articles: Robert Mueller is mentioned for compelling witnesses not to testify to Congress.  This could be an issue for the Mueller investigation in the near future.  Strzok’s relationship with Judge Rudolph Contreras could lead to a call for an investigation into the secretive workings of the FISC itself.

You can read the articles of impeachment here.