During Thursday’s House Judiciary hearing, Rep. Ron DeSantis told Rod Rosenstein point-blank that he should recuse himself for his role in the Muller investigation and the dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey.
DeSantis highlighted the popular notion that Donald Trump was obstructing justice when he fired James Comey under Rod Rosenstein’s recommendation.
Rosenstein is a key witness in the investigation, yet he is the one conducting it.
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“Let me ask you this …” said DeSantis. “You know, they talk about the ‘Mueller investigation’ — it’s really the ‘Rosenstein investigation.’ You appointed Mueller, you are supervising Mueller — and then supposedly about collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia and obstruction of justice — but you wrote the memo saying Comey should be fired, and you signed the FISA extension for Carter Page. So my question is to you — seems like you should be recused from this more so than Jeff Sessions just because you were involved in making decisions affecting both prongs of this investigation. Why haven’t you done that?”
“Congressman, I can assure you that if it were appropriate for me to recuse, I would be more than happy to do so and let somebody else handle this, but it is my responsibility to do it … ” Rosenstein replied.
“Then how do you have obstruction of justice possibility for a president exercising his powers to fire an FBI director that you said should be fired and oh, by the way, the IG report makes it clear, Jim Comey should have been fired. So why are we still doing this with the Mueller probe?” DeSantis interjected.
“Sir, I am not commenting on what is under investigation by the Mueller probe and to the best of my knowledge, neither is Mr. Muller. I know there is a lot of speculation in the media about that, but that doesn’t relieve me of my obligation not to discuss the subject matter of the investigation” Rosenstein concluded.