On Wednesday afternoon, House Republicans introduced articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the man overseeing the ongoing Russia investigation being conducted by Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel team of prosecutors and investigators.
Despite being second in command at the Justice Department to AG Jeff Sessions, Rosenstein is the watchdog on Russia after Sessions was forced to recuse himself due to his own personal involvement both in the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and with a number of Russian officials during the same time period.
Acting as a team, the founder and the chairman of the House “Freedom Caucus,” the new name that officials elected on a Tea Party platform have given themselves since the phrase “Tea Party” became toxic and synonymous with racism, Representatives Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows have put forth the articles of impeachment, citing “high crimes and misdemeanors” at the Justice Department and alleging that Rosenstein has been tardy or even reluctant to hand over documentation and evidence the House has asked for during hearings about the Russia investigation.
That’s ridiculous, of course — the Deputy AG and his team have handed over a monumental pile of evidence; surely more than House investigators have even remotely had an opportunity to parse or even finish reading at this point.
Meadows and Jordan, however, have barely veiled their desire to see the Russia investigation end well before Mueller comes up with a result any bigger than the multiple indictments and guilty pleas he’s already returned.
In order to convict Rosenstein on an impeachment, it would require the assent of two-thirds of the Senate — an impossible feat even if the vote went strictly along party lines.
CNN’s Manu Raju speculated that the reason for Meadows’ and Jordan’s action on Wednesday was not actually to impeach Rosenstein, since they know it will never happen, but rather to justify a Trump firing of the Deputy AG — if he were saddled with the public charges, it could color public opinion of him.
The two legislators, as well as a large number of their colleagues in the far right wing of the GOP, have stopped at nothing to assist Donald Trump in escaping any kind of accountability.
Watch the CNN clip below:
Featured image via screen capture
