Governance Experts Call On Speaker Paul Ryan to Publicly Oppose Threats by Reps Meadows and Jordan to Impeach Deputy AG
Governance Experts Call On Speaker Ryan to Publicly Oppose Threats by Reps Meadows and Jordan to Impeach Deputy AG
In a letter sent today to House Speaker Paul Ryan, Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer and Ambassador (Ret.) Norman Eisen, chief White House ethics lawyer, 2009-11, urged Speaker Ryan to publicly oppose demands being made by Representatives Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) to obtain documents from the Department of Justice involving Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election.
The letter also called on Speaker Ryan to publicly oppose the threats by Reps. Meadows and Jordan to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation.
According to the letter to Ryan:
As House Speaker and as leader of the Republicans in the House, you have a special responsibility to provide leadership for the country and for your fellow House Republicans.
The letter stated:
Reps. Meadows and Jordan have abused their office by demanding documents from the Justice Department to which they are not entitled and by threatening to pursue the impeachment of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if these documents are not provided.
The documents they are seeking involve an ongoing criminal investigation by the Justice Department in which President Trump is a subject. If these documents were obtained and then publicly leaked, they could do serious harm to the investigation. It would be even worse if these documents, or their contents, were privately conveyed to President Trump.
The letter noted that DOJ Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote to Reps. Meadows and Jordan rejecting their document request to the Deputy AG and stating that the “longstanding position” of the DOJ is that “congressional inquiries pertaining to ongoing criminal investigations threaten the integrity of those investigations.”
The letter to Ryan stated:
On May 2, 2018, two days after Boyd’s April 30 letter, President Trump attacked the Justice Department for not turning over the documents to Meadows and Jordan and tweeted, “At some point I will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the Presidency and get involved!”
This implies the President may instruct Rosenstein to turn over the documents to Meadows and Jordan and may then use a refusal by Rosenstein to do so as cover for removing Rosenstein from his position. This would leave President Trump free to name his own loyalist to oversee the Special Counsel investigation which he is a subject of.
The letter to Speaker Ryan pointed out that this takes place in the context of Reps. Meadows and Jordan “threatening to move for a vote on articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if he does not turn over the documents they requested.”
The letter noted the House has only impeached an Executive Branch official other than a President once, in 1876, “on grounds of a blatant pattern of corruption.”
The letter stated:
Using the impeachment process as a weapon to attack an Executive Branch official without any legitimate basis, however, is not new to Reps. Meadows and Jordan. They did the same thing in the last Congress when they pursued a meritless impeachment effort against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. They lost by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 342-72.
The letter to Speaker Ryan stated:
You recently publicly stated of both Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and Special Counsel Mueller, “I think they should be allowed to do their jobs.” You are now facing a situation in which two Republican Members of the House are attempting to interfere with the ability of Rosenstein and Mueller to “do their jobs.”
The letter concluded by strongly urging Speaker Ryan to voice opposition now to the efforts of Representative Meadows and Jordan to obtain DOJ documents relating to the Special Counsel criminal investigation which President Trump is a subject of.
The letter also urged Speaker Ryan to publicly oppose now any efforts to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein for his adherence to the DOJ’s “longstanding position” regarding disclosures of information related to an active criminal investigation.
The signers of the letter are Fred Wertheimer, President of Democracy 21, and Ambassador (Ret.) Norman Eisen, Chief White House ethics lawyer from 2009-2011.
