Rosenstein Set to Meet With House Lawmakers Next Thursday

(Bloomberg) -- Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein is tentatively set to be interviewed privately by a group of Republicans and Democrats from two House committees on Oct. 11 after reports that he discussed secretly recording President Donald Trump, according to a Republican member of one of the panels.

The meeting will be with some members and staff of the Judiciary and the Oversight and Government Reform committees, which have been conducting a joint examination of investigative decisions made during the 2016 election by the FBI and the Justice Department.

Spokeswomen for Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, who is said to be arranging the interview, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. An official notice hadn’t been sent out as of Tuesday afternoon. Amanda Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Oversight panel, referred a request for comment to the Judiciary Committee.

Rosenstein has most recently come under congressional scrutiny as a result of a report last month in the New York Times that he had suggested to colleagues last year that he could secretly record Trump and also discussed invoking the 25th Amendment that allows for removing a president who’s unfit. Rosenstein denied the report.

House Republicans have previously accused Rosenstein of withholding documents from them related to the Russia election-interference probe, which they say was tainted early on by anti-Trump bias in the Justice Department and the FBI. They also have been scrutinizing his role in authorizing surveillance warrants on aides to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Some lawmakers, including Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, have suggested that if Rosenstein didn’t agree to meet with lawmakers he should resign or be targeted with potential contempt of Congress or impeachment action.

Trump had been scheduled to meet with Rosenstein last week to determine whether he would remain in his job. Rosenstein had resigned verbally to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly after reports were published about the discussion of secretly taping Trump. The president decided to keep him in place for the time being.

Trump then delayed his meeting with Rosenstein, saying he wanted to avoid conflicting with the confirmation debate for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. It’s unclear when that meeting will take place.

To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Larry Liebert

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