Top Dems: Deputy AG ‘compromised’ by Comey firing

Top Democrats in both chambers are souring on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in the wake of the ouster of FBI Director James Comey. 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, are both accusing Rosenstein of dereliction of duty for providing what they consider a faux justification for Comey’s firing on Tuesday. 

“Given Rosenstein’s legal expertise and 27-year Justice Department career, I would have expected him to produce a detailed and comprehensive rationale for Director Comey’s firing including input from the agents and staff who worked with Director Comey,” Feinstein said Thursday in a statement.

{mosads}“But instead of a document that provides meaningful analysis, the memo reads like political document.”

Both lawmakers are demanding that Rosenstein step out of certain deliberations related to Comey’s firing and the Justice Department’s investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump administration.

“I … urge Deputy AG Rosenstein to request that a three-judge panel appoint a special prosecutor and then recuse himself from any investigations dealing with the Trump Administration,” Engel said in a statement. 

Engel has taken his criticism a step further, calling also for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign. Sessions had recused himself from his department’s Russia probe after providing false testimony under oath about his personal communications with Kremlin officials during the presidential campaign. He nonetheless played a key role in the firing of Comey, who was leading that investigation. 

“Their jobs are to enforce our laws, not give the President cover, and their actions leave them compromised and entangled in the President’s scandal,” Engel said.

The Democrats’ criticisms are just the latest wave of the political storm ignited by Comey’s firing. The stunning move has united Democrats, thrown Republicans on the defensive and threatened Trump’s ambitious legislative agenda just as Senate Republicans are launching their ObamaCare repeal effort. Comey’s ouster has also highlighted how quickly reputations can be won and lost in the highly polarized Capitol. 

Rosenstein enjoyed enormous bipartisan support before this week, winning Senate confirmation with an overwhelming 94-6 vote just 16 days ago and landing plenty of praise from Democrats in the process.  

“He had developed a reputation for integrity,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said late last month.

But in firing Comey, Trump leaned heavily on a recommendation from Rosenstein, the second-ranking official at the Justice Department, whose three-page memo hammering Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email scandal was immediately blasted to the press. 

In the letter, Rosenstein said Comey was “wrong” last July in announcing the FBI would bring no charges against Clinton. More recently, Rosenstein continued, Comey erred in informing Congress just before November’s elections that the agency was reopening the Clinton investigation.

“Having refused to admit his errors, the Director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions,” Rosenstein wrote.

Trump officials initially cited Rosenstein’s letter — and his above-politics reputation — as the driving force behind Trump’s decision.

“I think when you receive a report that is so clear and a recommendation by someone like the deputy attorney general you have no choice but to act,” spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told MSNBC Wednesday.

“This is a person who has a stellar credentials, and when they make such a compelling case, I don’t think that you can sit on that.”

The Democrats disagree, and Feinstein said she becomes “more troubled” by the “unusual document” each time she reads it.

“The memo appears to have been hastily assembled to justify a preordained outcome,” she said Thursday.

“The attorney general and deputy attorney general should recuse themselves from the appointment, selection and reporting of a special counsel,” she added. “This issue should be handled by the most senior career attorney at the Justice Department.”

The Washington Post reported Wednesday night that Trump, in fact, had decided himself to fire Comey and requested a subsequent justification from both Rosenstein and Sessions, which the two provided. But Rosenstein was furious that Trump leaned so heavily on his letter, the Post noted, to the point of threatening to resign.

Trump also told NBC’s Lester Holt on Thursday that he was going to fire Comey “regardless of the recommendation.”

Sanders on Thursday was already walking back her earlier argument.

“The decision to fire Director Comey was the president’s and the president’s alone,” she told NBC’s “Today Show.”

The White House has said it’s already begun its search for Comey’s replacement. Democrats are already wary of that process, suspicious that Trump will appoint a figure who will toe his line and drop the Russia investigation. 

Still, under Senate rules adopted in 2013 by Senate Democrats, any nominee would require only 51 votes to win approval in an upper chamber where Republicans hold 52 seats.