D21 Calls on House to Oppose Baseless Effort by Reps. Meadows & Jordan to Impeach Deputy AG Rosenstein
Democracy 21 Calls on House Members to Oppose Baseless Effort by Reps. Meadows and Jordan to Impeach Deputy AG Rosenstein
In a letter sent to the House of Representatives today, Democracy 21 urged Representatives to vote against any articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein which may be brought to the floor of the House.
According to the letter:
A report published in POLITICO (July 13, 2018) states that Reps. Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) are preparing to file articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
The letter states, “The effort to impeach Mr. Rosenstein is unprecedented, completely unwarranted and a gross abuse of the impeachment process.”
According to the letter:
There has never been an impeachment of an executive branch official at a sub-cabinet level, such as the position held by Deputy AG Rosenstein. This is for good reason.
The impeachment process was intended by the framers of the constitution to be used only in the rarest of circumstances. The process was meant to be used only for “treason, bribery or other high crimes or misdemeanors” – the constitutional standard for impeachment. (U.S. Const. Art. II, sec. 4.) It was never intended to be used to settle differences between the executive branch and Congress, no matter how strong the differences might be.
The letter states:
In the current matter, the differences between the executive branch and Congress relate to efforts by Reps. Meadows and Jordan, and some others, to obtain confidential and sensitive internal Justice Department documents regarding the criminal investigation currently being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The Justice Department never releases this kind of highly sensitive information in the middle of a criminal investigation because doing so could seriously compromise the investigation, particularly if the information ends up in the hands of the individuals being investigated.
According to Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer:
Reps. Meadows and Jordan are reportedly preparing to file articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for simply doing his job and protecting the integrity of the Mueller investigation and our criminal justice system.
It is incumbent on House members to reject this irresponsible, meritless impeachment effort by Reps. Meadows and Jordan, as House members previously did in 2016 when they rejected a baseless Meadows-Jordan effort to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 72 to 342.
The letter notes that the POLITICO report about the effort by Reps. Meadows and Jordan “came on the same day that Deputy AG Rosenstein announced the indictment of 12 Russian military officials for the cyber invasion of our democracy in the 2016 presidential election.”
The letter also notes that “the Mueller investigation, which Reps. Meadows and Jordan are attempting to discredit and undermine, has been in existence for fifteen months. During this period, the investigation already has either indicted or obtained guilty pleas from 32 individuals and three companies. This includes 187 criminal charges brought in active indictments or plea agreements and an additional 23 charges that have been vacated with regard to a cooperating witness.”
According to the letter:
In light of the irrefutable documentation of the Russian invasion of the 2016 presidential election that is set forth in the new indictments, President Trump’s continuing claims that the Mueller investigation is a witch hunt are obviously without any merit, as are the efforts by Reps. Meadows and Jordan to discredit both the Mueller investigation and Deputy AG Rosenstein, who oversees it.
The letter concludes:
Democracy 21 calls on you not to abandon 229 years of American history and not to abuse the solemn power of impeachment provided in the Constitution.
We strongly urge you to vote against any effort to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein.
Read the full letter here.
