In a statement released Thursday, Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein called upon Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rostenstein to “recuse themselves from the appointment, selection and reporting of a special counsel” to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Feinstein calls Rosenstein’s memo recommending the ouster of former FBI Director James Comey a “political document” that was “hastily assembled to justify a preordained outcome.”
“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,” writes Feinstein. “But instead of a document that provides meaningful analysis, the memo reads like political document. It includes quotes from op-eds and television appearances that are as old as six months. It doesn’t include any contemporary insights from inside the FBI. The memo appears to have been hastily assembled to justify a preordained outcome.”
Feinstein is a senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Her position marks a rapid departure from her initial stance suggesting she’d be willing to help President Donald Trump fulfill the vacancy. In previous statements, Feinstein has called the former FBI director’s actions “extremely careless” and “a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.”
Davis Richardson is a writer whose work has appeared in VICE, Nylon Magazine, The Daily Caller, and WIRED. Follow him on Twitter